Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Op­po­si­tion has called for the ur­gent con­ven­ing of Par­lia­ment’s Stand­ing Or­ders Com­mit­tee, ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of re­duc­ing Prime Min­is­ter’s Ques­tions to “a par­lia­men­tary cha­rade” by cur­tail­ing Op­po­si­tion ques­tions and block­ing sup­ple­men­tal ques­tions.

The call came af­ter Gov­ern­ment House Leader Bar­ry Padarath not­ed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day that, al­though it was the day for Prime Min­is­ter’s Ques­tions, no ques­tions had been filed by the Op­po­si­tion.

Op­po­si­tion Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les at­tempt­ed to ex­plain the de­ci­sion, but House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh said no ex­pla­na­tion was re­quired and that pro­ceed­ings should move on.

In a sub­se­quent state­ment, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) said the Op­po­si­tion had re­fused to dig­ni­fy what Prime Min­is­ter’s Ques­tions had been re­duced to: “A shame­ful par­lia­men­tary cha­rade de­signed not to pro­mote ac­count­abil­i­ty, but to shield the Prime Min­is­ter from it.”

“Prime Min­is­ter’s Ques­tions was in­tro­duced in­to the Stand­ing Or­ders in 2014, to­geth­er with Prac­tice Di­rec­tions is­sued un­der then Speak­er Wade Mark, as an im­por­tant mech­a­nism through which the Prime Min­is­ter could be held di­rect­ly ac­count­able to the Par­lia­ment and the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

But the PNM said that im­por­tant de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prac­tice has now been sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly un­der­mined.

“More than 90 per cent of the ques­tions sub­mit­ted by the Op­po­si­tion for an­swer by the Prime Min­is­ter have been de­nied.

“Even when ques­tions are per­mit­ted, the Op­po­si­tion is be­ing pre­vent­ed from ask­ing le­git­i­mate sup­ple­men­tal ques­tions aris­ing from the Prime Min­is­ter’s an­swers and state­ments.”

The PNM said this stands in stark con­trast to the op­er­a­tion of Prime Min­is­ter’s Ques­tions un­der for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who at­tend­ed Prime Min­is­ter’s Ques­tions ses­sions, sub­ject­ing him­self to sup­ple­men­tal ques­tions from the then-op­po­si­tion UNC.

“To­day, how­ev­er, we’re con­front­ed with a Prime Min­is­ter who’s come to Par­lia­ment for the first time since the Au­gust re­cess, hav­ing been ab­sent from Par­lia­ment for the month of Sep­tem­ber, and who now wish­es to cre­ate the ap­pear­ance that she’s come be­fore Par­lia­ment to ac­count to Trinidad and To­ba­go—the Op­po­si­tion will not par­tic­i­pate in that pre­tence.”

The PNM al­so said Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters are in­creas­ing­ly in­vok­ing Stand­ing Or­ders to avoid an­swer­ing crit­i­cal ques­tions in­volv­ing mat­ters of sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic in­ter­est.

“We will not dig­ni­fy this fake dis­play of ac­count­abil­i­ty. If the Prime Min­is­ter gen­uine­ly in­tends to ac­count to the peo­ple, then al­low the Op­po­si­tion’s le­git­i­mate ques­tions, prop­er sup­ple­men­tal ques­tions and re­quire min­is­ters to an­swer ques­tions of pub­lic im­por­tance. Stop ma­nip­u­lat­ing par­lia­men­tary pro­ce­dure to frus­trate scruti­ny!”