Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar must fire the Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor who al­leged­ly re­ceived “bribe” so­lic­i­ta­tions from two un­named in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, since the Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor’s fail­ure to alert the Sen­ate of the is­sue is tan­ta­mount to a crim­i­nal act, says Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) deputy leader San­jiv Bood­hu.

“And the Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor must be crim­i­nal­ly pros­e­cut­ed,” Bood­hu added.

Bood­hu, an at­tor­ney, was a tem­po­rary PNM sen­a­tor dur­ing Tues­day’s Sen­ate de­bate on the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions bill. It was de­feat­ed due to a lack of in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors’ sup­port.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar sub­se­quent­ly al­leged that dur­ing de­bate, two “in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors” ap­proached “a se­nior gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor” seek­ing “per­son­al favours” in ex­change for the votes need­ed for the bill’s pas­sage. She said the re­quests were re­ject­ed but didn’t iden­ti­fy the “in­de­pen­dents” or the “gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor,” nor did she pro­vide any ev­i­dence to sup­port the claim.

Yes­ter­day, PNM leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les said, “Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, when will you stop play­ing pol­i­tics with tragedy? Tens of thou­sands of cit­i­zens have suf­fered un­der your watch while you chase head­lines and ped­dle lies! The peo­ple of T&T de­serve lead­er­ship—not spin, ex­cus­es, threats and the­atrics!”

Bood­hu ad­dressed the li­a­bil­i­ty sta­tus of the uniden­ti­fied Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor, dis­miss­ing UNC Sen­a­tor Phillip Alexan­der’s call for the nine in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors to re­sign ahead of next Tues­day’s Sen­ate sit­ting.

“This is the de­f­i­n­i­tion of the com­plete ab­sence of log­ic,” Bood­hu added.

“These UNC sen­a­tors’ call for the res­ig­na­tion of the en­tire in­de­pen­dent bench be­cause their ob­vi­ous­ly de­lud­ed leader has ac­cused two name­less in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors of so­lic­it­ing bribes from an al­so un­named ‘se­nior gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor’. But the ‘se­nior gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor’ must al­so re­sign and must al­so be crim­i­nal­ly pros­e­cut­ed!

“The Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter’s al­le­ga­tion im­pli­cates three per­sons—one of whom is her sen­a­tor—who she al­leges re­ceived the so­lic­i­ta­tion of a bribe and failed to im­me­di­ate­ly act.

“The fail­ure to re­port this crim­i­nal act im­me­di­ate­ly, by bring­ing it to the Sen­ate dur­ing the de­bate, by caus­ing the de­bate—which had ob­vi­ous­ly be­come com­pro­mised—to be stalled for the in­ter­ven­tion of the Pres­i­dent and TTPS, is tan­ta­mount to aid­ing a crim­i­nal act and is a se­ri­ous dere­lic­tion of du­ty, a breach of the oath of of­fice, and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice.”

Bood­hu added, “The UNC is at­tempt­ing to dis­tract the pub­lic from the fact that (1) if there is any truth to this al­le­ga­tion, they did noth­ing, al­lowed the de­bate to con­tin­ue and the vote to be tak­en, bring­ing the en­tire de­bate in­to dis­re­pute, il­le­git­i­ma­cy and odi­um.

“And (2) if there is no truth to this al­le­ga­tion, the PM has most bla­tant­ly and de­lib­er­ate­ly mis­led the pop­u­la­tion and com­pro­mised the in­tegri­ty of the en­tire bench of gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors and what­ev­er pub­lic cred­i­bil­i­ty they had.”

Bood­hu said, “It’s ei­ther the PM names the three in­di­vid­u­als, who must all re­sign and be crim­i­nal­ly pros­e­cut­ed, or the PM ad­mits that she has told a de­lib­er­ate un­truth which was in­tend­ed to dis­cred­it the in­de­pen­dents. If the lat­ter is re­al­i­ty, the PM would have then con­firmed that she is to­tal­ly un­fit for of­fice, and the ap­pro­pri­ate steps must fol­low.

“Un­til this is­sue is re­solved one way or the oth­er, the Gov­ern­ment’s sen­a­tors can­not be trust­ed, can­not be tak­en at their word, and have no col­lec­tive or in­di­vid­ual cred­i­bil­i­ty. The pub­lic sim­ply can­not trust one word this Gov­ern­ment has to say un­til this is­sue is de­ter­mined.

“Con­fi­dence in the Gov­ern­ment hangs in the bal­ance. The PM’s next step, which should be tak­en with­in 24 hours and be­fore the Low­er House con­venes (to­day), is piv­otal to the fu­ture of her gov­ern­ment.”

Bood­hu al­so dis­missed ac­cu­sa­tions about the num­ber of amend­ments which were be­ing of­fered for the bill: “Their sug­ges­tion is that the num­ber of amend­ments is what caused the bill to fail. (But) The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, from the start, said he wasn’t in a po­si­tion to ac­cept any amend­ments. Why didn’t he say once that there were too many for his con­sid­er­a­tion? For God’s sake—at least get the lie straight!”