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Thursday, July 10, 2025

LAS LAP FOR PARLIAMENT

51 bills coming, no-confidence moves against Govt, some MPs in and some out

by

Gail Alexander
2111 days ago
20190928

A heavy agen­da is in place for the up­com­ing last ses­sion of the Par­lia­men­tary term—51 pieces of leg­is­la­tion from Gov­ern­ment, no-con­fi­dence mo­tions from the Op­po­si­tion and the last year in Par­lia­ment for some MPs on both sides.

Hints of what's ahead for the last par­lia­men­tary seg­ment of the five-year term were giv­en by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi, Op­po­si­tion deputy leader David Lee and Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans dur­ing the last week.

Par­lia­ment's fourth ses­sion pro­rogued last Fri­day. The fifth ses­sion of the cur­rent 11th Par­lia­ment will be launched at 1.30 pm on Wednes­day at the Par­lia­ment's Wa­ter­front, Port-of-Spain lo­ca­tion.

There will be no cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing. In­stead, both the Up­per and Low­er Hous­es of Par­lia­ment will meet sep­a­rate­ly, and then to­geth­er in the Par­lia­ment Cham­ber. Brief re­marks are ex­pect­ed from lead­ers of both sides to launch the last ses­sion of the Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion's term. The first or­der of busi­ness for the ses­sion, will be de­liv­ery of the 2020 Bud­get on Oc­to­ber 7.

This ses­sion al­so of­fi­cial­ly kicks off the elec­tion year lead­ing in­to Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls—ex­pect­ed be­tween No­vem­ber and ear­ly 2020—and gen­er­al elec­tion.

Fol­low­ing the Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion and de­bate, which con­cludes at the end of Oc­to­ber, the rul­ing PNM will launch its Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions cam­paign on No­vem­ber 10 at PNM's 49th an­nu­al con­ven­tion.

This will be at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah. Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment can­di­dates will be pre­sent­ed then, PNM PRO Lau­rel Leza­ma-Lee Sing con­firmed yes­ter­day.

The par­ty com­pletes out­stand­ing LG screen­ing next Thurs­day (for ten North and Cen­tral seats) and Fri­day (for 15 South seats). Re­spec­tive screen­ings will be at PNM's Bal­isi­er House and South of­fices.

Last week PNM sources pro­ject­ed an LG date may be ei­ther De­cem­ber 2, 9 or 16 lat­est. A date is ex­pect­ed to be an­nounced at the PNM's con­ven­tion. The par­ty will al­so re­sume screen­ing soon for gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­nees.

In this last Par­lia­men­tary seg­ment, UNC's Lee said the Op­po­si­tion is plan­ning to present sev­er­al mo­tions of no con­fi­dence. "One will be against the Gov­ern­ment and oth­ers, re­gard­ing cer­tain port­fo­lios. Those are com­ing very ear­ly."

Al-Rawi said ap­prox­i­mate­ly 51 pieces of leg­is­la­tion are sched­uled to be pre­sent­ed in Par­lia­ment dur­ing the last ses­sion. This in­cludes over tens bills which will be car­ried over from the fourth ses­sion such as bills to for­malise the gam­ing/gam­bling/casi­no sec­tor, the TT Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty, fi­nan­cial, jus­tice and an­ti-crime as­pects.

Oth­ers in­clude bills to de­crim­i­nalise mar­i­jua­na, on cam­paign fi­nance re­form and to reg­u­late the re­al es­tate agents sec­tor and reg­is­tra­tion of deeds. The pro­posed leg­is­la­tion al­so con­cerns Glob­al Fo­rum con­di­tions and fur­ther amend­ments to the Bail Bill to tight­en bail on the traf­fick­ing of firearms if a per­son com­mits even one of­fence. Leg­is­la­tion to deal with cru­el­ty to an­i­mals, the in­sur­ance sec­tor and im­ple­ment GPS sys­tems on fish­ing boats is al­so on the list.

SOME IN, SOME OUT

Some PNM MPs want to re­turn, some out

At­ten­dees for Wednes­day's launch are ex­pect­ed to in­clude em­bat­tled PNM MP Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald who was re­cent­ly placed on al­leged cor­rup­tion charges. She hasn't at­tend­ed Par­lia­ment since be­fore the Ju­ly re­cess be­fore she was charged. Af­ter be­ing charged Mc­Don­ald missed three par­lia­men­tary sit­tings.

How­ev­er, her par­ty is mov­ing on, con­tin­u­ing to fi­nalise LG prepa­ra­tions over the next few days and height­en prepa­ra­tions for gen­er­al polls fo­cus­ing on can­di­dates for op­po­si­tion-held ar­eas.

PNM has three gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­dates: sen­a­tors Daniel Dook­ie (Pointe-a-Pierre), Clarence Ramb­harat (Ch­agua­nas East), Ndale Young (San Juan-Barataria).

Leza­ma-Lee Sing said the par­ty will start screen­ing for Ca­roni East, St Au­gus­tine, Cou­va South and Cu­mu­to-Man­zanil­la "very soon." Nom­i­na­tions for these ar­eas opened ear­ly in the year, "Some nom­i­na­tions, in­clude some very cred­i­ble peo­ple."

PNM sources said last Wednes­day a hand­ful of cur­rent MPs may not be "re­turned" af­ter this par­lia­men­tary ses­sion and some shifts among cur­rent MPs and in­clu­sion of some sen­a­tors is ex­pect­ed. Choic­es for mar­gin­al seats are ex­pect­ed to be made af­ter LG elec­tions to give the par­ty a more in­formed idea of its po­lit­i­cal stand­ing.

Most PNM MPs didn't an­swer yes­ter­day but some—in­clud­ing Tu­na­puna MP Es­mond Forde—said when nom­i­na­tions are opened he'd sub­mit his since he is will­ing to serve "once the peo­ple want it."

Ari­ma MP An­tho­ny Gar­cia, not­ing PNM's nom­i­na­tion process­es, added that he was still in­ter­est­ed in serv­ing but had to con­sid­er his par­ty group, con­stituen­cy and fam­i­ly. Not­ing PNM still has to get through LG elec­tions, he added that no MP is wed­ded to any par­tic­u­lar post, "But my life's been one of ser­vice," he said, de­tail­ing a host of ar­eas he's served in.

UNC in­cum­bents fil­ing nom­i­na­tions, but new faces emerg­ing

The Op­po­si­tion opened gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­na­tions a few weeks ago and no dead­line has been an­nounced. Sev­er­al in­cum­bents yes­ter­day sig­nalled in­ten­tion to file nom­i­na­tion though some were guard­ed about in­ten­tions.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has been ap­point­ing new faces to the Sen­ate, some of whom are tipped for gen­er­al elec­tion po­si­tion. Lat­est was at­tor­ney Rishi Tri­pathi who de­buted at last Wednes­day's Sen­ate sit­ting, speak­ing in a de­bate on the Gov­ern­ment's hous­ing sav­ings bond.

Tri­pathi whose law prac­tice is in Ch­agua­nas where he's from is al­ready be­ing tipped by sources for seats in Cou­va and Ch­agua­nas.

Yes­ter­day he said he may seek to con­test gen­er­al polls. "I haven't yet de­cid­ed, but I'm in­ter­est­ed in serv­ing the peo­ple. Every at­tor­ney as­pires to be a leg­is­la­tor. I en­joyed my stint in the Sen­ate and hope to serve fur­ther."

Tabaquite MP Su­ruj Ram­bachan who re­cent­ly an­nounced re­tire­ment from pol­i­tics said he isn't en­cour­ag­ing his daugh­ter Ran­jana, an at­tor­ney, to fol­low in his foot­steps as an MP. "But she has her own mind and if in the end, she en­ters pol­i­tics, that's up to her. She was al­ways in­ter­est­ed as she's ac­com­pa­nied me in the last 15 years. I've en­cour­aged her to build her le­gal ca­reer, there are many oth­er ways to serve T&T be­side be­ing an MP, but it's up to her."

Roodal Mooni­lal (Oropouche East) said he had col­lect­ed nom­i­na­tion forms and is work­ing on the nec­es­sary doc­u­men­ta­tion.

Ra­mona Ram­di­al (Cou­va North) said, "Of course, I'm in­ter­est­ed in con­test­ing again, I'll file and I'm ready to fight who­ev­er wants it. In 2015 it was se­ri­ous com­pe­ti­tion."

Bar­ry Padarath (Princes Town) said he was ex­am­in­ing the mat­ter in " ...light of my pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al di­rec­tions. This year's been very chal­leng­ing. One has to con­sid­er fam­i­ly and con­stituents. I know I'm one of the most vo­cal MPs and very vis­i­ble com­pared to oth­er past MPs. But I won't im­pose my­self on con­stituents, I'll con­sult them."

Rudy In­dars­ingh (Cou­va South) is con­sid­er­ing con­test­ing to con­tin­ue work­ing for the area. He's speak­ing to con­stituents who've giv­en him unan­i­mous ap­proval.

Bhoe Tewarie (Ca­roni Cen­tral) said he'll file nom­i­na­tion to try to give con­stituents an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be in Gov­ern­ment. He feels UNC needs "a boost of a good mix of ex­pe­ri­ence, com­pe­tence, youth and fresh­ness" and he could add val­ue.

"Any new gov­ern­ment will face a for­mi­da­ble chal­lenge be­cause the Row­ley Gov­ern­ment has spent time blam­ing every­one, pro­vid­ing no so­lu­tions and mak­ing few in­ter­ven­tions to stim­u­late con­fi­dence and re­cov­ery. That task will fall to us. Jobs, eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery and so­lu­tions are what peo­ple will ex­pect from a new gov­ern­ment. UNC will have to be a so­lu­tion provider that makes re­cov­ery hap­pen and moves T&T to shared pros­per­i­ty with greater eq­ui­ty. I'd cher­ish the op­por­tu­ni­ty to con­tribute to build­ing a bet­ter fu­ture."

Fuad Khan (San Juan Barataria) said it was up to the leader to "...say who she car­ries for­ward or leaves be­hind. She knows my thoughts...the op­tion to change is for pos­si­bly a younger more vi­brant crowd. The time has come for youths to take reins and for younger rep­re­sen­ta­tives, more aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly in­clined and of the new world or­der. Our time has passed."

David Lee (Pointe-a-Pierre) said he in­tends fil­ing. "I'll do all pos­si­ble to re­turn to gov­ern­ment. I as­sure if we win we'll do things dif­fer­ent­ly."

Gan­ga Singh (Ch­agua­nas West) said he hasn't de­cid­ed. Fazal Karim (Ch­agua­nas East) he is "still con­sid­er­ing." Tim Gopeesingh (Ca­roni East) had no com­ment. Rod­ney Charles (Na­pari­ma) said he' would get back to the Guardian.

COP MP Prakash Ra­mad­har is un­de­cid­ed be­cause of the qual­i­ty of the pol­i­tics and politi­cians' con­duct. "T&T faces far greater threats than ever. The last thing need­ed is for the pol­i­tics to di­vide peo­ple fur­ther. What­ev­er ve­hi­cle that takes T&T to a po­si­tion where all is unit­ed to face chal­lenges, that's the ve­hi­cle I'll be look­ing at."


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