Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

A new cor­po­rate man­age­ment struc­ture for Par­lia­ment is ex­pect­ed to give it greater fi­nan­cial, ad­min­is­tra­tive and in­sti­tu­tion­al in­de­pen­dence and au­ton­o­my. House Speak­er Wade Mark said it was an­tic­i­pat­ed that con­sti­tu­tion­al change would "change the way we do busi­ness in Par­lia­ment." He said the achieve­ment of bi-cam­er­al­ism in 1961 rep­re­sent­ed a sig­nif­i­cant and fun­da­men­tal change from the old crown colony plan­ta­tion mod­el which was im­posed on Trinidad in 1831 by the colo­nial au­thor­i­ties.

He said: "Since that time, the cit­i­zens have cease­less­ly ag­i­tat­ed for mean­ing­ful and con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form and we feel con­fi­dent that ma­jor con­sti­tu­tion­al changes will be em­barked up­on by the Par­lia­ment in the not too dis­tant fu­ture." He said a team was work­ing close­ly with the chief par­lia­men­tary coun­sel to draft the nec­es­sary leg­is­la­tion which would be in­tro­duced in the Par­lia­ment and then hope­ful­ly it would be re­ferred to a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee where Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment could de­lib­er­ate on the pro­pos­al and then hold a de­bate. Mark spoke at the launch at the Red House yes­ter­day of a se­ries of lec­tures in com­mem­o­ra­tion of the 50th an­niver­sary of the bi-cam­er­al par­lia­men­tary sys­tem in T&T.

On De­cem­ber 29, the Par­lia­ment would ob­serve 50 years since the es­tab­lish­ment of the bi-cam­er­al par­lia­men­tary sys­tem. Mark said: "In or­der to com­mem­o­rate this his­tor­i­cal and aus­pi­cious 50th an­niver­sary mile­stone, the Par­lia­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go is em­bark­ing up­on a se­ries of lec­tures which is in­tend­ed to achieve a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of our par­lia­men­tary sys­tem of gov­er­nance." He said the main ob­jec­tives of the lec­tures were to cre­ate aware­ness and gen­er­ate in­ter­est among the pop­u­la­tion for the an­niver­sary; en­cour­age at­ten­dance and live­ly par­tic­i­pa­tion by cit­i­zens and nur­ture the need to be more civic-mind­ed and en­gage in the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process­es of the gov­er­nance in­sti­tu­tions.

The first lec­ture would be held on Sep­tem­ber 5 at Mt Irvine Bay Ho­tel, To­ba­go, at 6 pm by for­mer head of the Pub­lic Ser­vice, Regi­nald Du­mas. Oth­er lec­tures would be held through­out Trinidad by po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tists and uni­ver­si­ty lec­tur­ers. Mark urged cit­i­zens, es­pe­cial­ly uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents, to at­tend the lec­tures since he said there ap­peared to be a de­fi­cien­cy in ful­ly ap­pre­ci­at­ing the role Par­lia­ment played in sus­tain­ing and pro­mot­ing the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic cul­ture and process. Mem­bers of the plan­ning com­mit­tee for the an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions are Sen­ate pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith, Mark, Sen­a­tor Cor­rine Bap­tiste-McK­night, MPs Collin Par­tap and Nile­ung Hy­po­lite and Pro­fes­sor Brins­ley Sama­roo, his­to­ri­an.