Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les and for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young have de­fend­ed the nine In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors af­ter they vot­ed against the Gov­ern­ment’s con­tro­ver­sial Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Amend­ment Bill (2026), with Beck­les warn­ing that the leg­is­la­tion could open the door to bil­lions of dol­lars be­ing squan­dered.

The Bill was passed on Mon­day night af­ter Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark’s cast­ing vote broke a 15-15 tie of Gov­ern­ment votes for the Bill and Op­po­si­tion and In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors’ votes against it.

Yes­ter­day Beck­les said, “The Gov­ern­ment would have you be­lieve that the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors’ in­di­vid­ual de­ci­sions not to sup­port the pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion are un­just and wrong. I’m out­raged by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to pass a Bill that every In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor, who has sup­port­ed Gov­ern­ment leg­is­la­tion on count­less oc­ca­sions, found dif­fi­cult to sup­port.

“What is telling is that this Gov­ern­ment ap­pears to be here for a good time, with bad rea­son, and is pre­pared to go to ex­treme mea­sures to fat­ten its pock­ets.”

Young al­so crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse to the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors, say­ing their de­ci­sion was part of their con­sti­tu­tion­al role.

“The cur­rent un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic pas­sage of leg­is­la­tion that dras­ti­cal­ly af­fects our con­sti­tu­tion­al rights should con­cern every law-abid­ing and civic-mind­ed cit­i­zen.”

Young said that in 2022, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Gov­ern­ment’s Bail Amend­ment Bill was de­feat­ed af­ter In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors joined the then UNC Op­po­si­tion in vot­ing against it.

“How­ev­er, we didn’t re­spond by at­tack­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al role of the In­de­pen­dent Bench. No one in the PNM gov­ern­ment launched an un­hinged, di­vi­sive and dan­ger­ous rant against In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors the way Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has.

“In­stead, the PNM gov­ern­ment went back to the draw­ing board re­gard­ing the Bill. That’s how a re­spon­si­ble, ma­ture po­lit­i­cal par­ty that re­spects democ­ra­cy op­er­ates. More re­veal­ing­ly, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, as Op­po­si­tion Leader, cel­e­brat­ed that de­feat and pub­licly urged the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors to ‘con­tin­ue to be as in­de­pen­dent as you al­ways seem to be’.”