Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge yes­ter­day used a Par­lia­ment reg­u­la­tion to say it was not in the pub­lic in­ter­est to dis­close whether au­tho­ri­sa­tion had been grant­ed for var­i­ous US mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions in T&T’s land and sea ter­ri­to­ry.

Sturge re­spond­ed af­ter Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les cit­ed videos, satel­lite im­agery, pho­tographs and me­dia re­ports of US war­ship sight­ings in the Gulf of Paria and US mil­i­tary air­craft in T&T’s air­space. Gon­za­les asked whether au­tho­ri­sa­tion had been grant­ed for such op­er­a­tions.

Sturge said, “Un­til the MP can con­vince me as to how dis­clo­sure ei­ther way is in the pub­lic in­ter­est, I’d have no choice but to re­ly on the pro­tec­tions af­ford­ed by Stand­ing Or­der 27(1)(G).”

That Stand­ing Or­der al­lows a min­is­ter to de­cline an­swer­ing if, in his opin­ion, pub­li­ca­tion of the an­swer would be con­trary to the pub­lic in­ter­est.

Gon­za­les at­tempt­ed a sup­ple­men­tal ques­tion, but House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh said, “A sup­ple­men­tal on the in­vo­ca­tion of the pub­lic in­ter­est im­mu­ni­ty con­tained in Sec­tion 27G? The min­is­ter’s in­voked the pub­lic in­ter­est im­mu­ni­ty re­quire­ment in Sec­tion 27G, I think we all agree that the in­vo­ca­tion of the pub­lic in­ter­est im­mu­ni­ty ex­emp­tion is an ab­solute ex­emp­tion, so what pos­si­ble ques­tion could you con­jure up on the in­vo­ca­tion of the pub­lic in­ter­est im­mu­ni­ty sec­tion?!”

When Gon­za­les in­sist­ed it was a sup­ple­men­tary ques­tion, Singh replied, “A sup­ple­men­tary ques­tion on what?! I’d in­vite you to raise the ques­tion with­out invit­ing an an­swer for now… raise the ques­tion, let’s see how that makes any sense.”

Gon­za­les said, “Thank you very much for al­low­ing me a sup­ple­men­tary ques­tion to 27(1)(g). The ques­tion to the min­is­ter is whether or not he in­tends to per­form his du­ty as a min­is­ter in this Par­lia­ment!”

Singh, say­ing the Stand­ing Or­der is an ab­solute pro­hi­bi­tion, added that whether Gon­za­les felt it was an abuse or oth­er­wise, “The Par­lia­ment isn’t the place to air those con­cerns,” adding that Gon­za­les had “lured” him in­to think­ing he had a le­git­i­mate ques­tion, on­ly to be told it was “a grand de­cep­tion to make a speech.”

PNM con­demns Sturge’s re­fusal to an­swer

In a me­dia re­lease last night, the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment con­demned Sturge’s “con­tin­u­ing re­fusal to an­swer le­git­i­mate ques­tions in the House, mark­ing the third con­sec­u­tive oc­ca­sion on which he’s hid­den be­hind Stand­ing Or­der 27(g) to avoid ac­count­abil­i­ty.”

The PNM said the sit­ting “once again ex­posed the dis­turb­ing pat­tern that has de­vel­oped un­der this min­is­ter. In­stead of pro­vid­ing clar­i­ty on se­ri­ous mat­ters re­lat­ing to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and pub­lic anx­i­ety, Min­is­ter Sturge chose si­lence. His con­duct has now be­come the defin­ing char­ac­ter­is­tic of his tenure: ab­sen­tee lead­er­ship, a void in com­mu­ni­ca­tion and an un­de­ni­able con­tempt for the over­sight re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of Par­lia­ment.”

The par­ty list­ed pre­vi­ous oc­ca­sions on which it said the Stand­ing Or­der was “im­prop­er­ly in­voked”:

• Oc­to­ber 10, when Sturge was asked to ex­plain the sud­den ter­mi­na­tion of the Chief of De­fence Staff dur­ing a State of Emer­gency

• Oc­to­ber 31, when he was asked to con­firm re­ports that De­fence Force of­fi­cers had been in­struct­ed to im­me­di­ate­ly re­turn to base

The PNM said, “On each of these oc­ca­sions, the PNM’s ques­tions arose as a re­sult of height­ened pub­lic anx­i­ety; dri­ven by so­cial me­dia re­ports, lo­cal jour­nal­ism and in­ter­na­tion­al cov­er­age. On each of these oc­ca­sions, the min­is­ter chose eva­sion in­stead of in­for­ma­tion, se­cre­cy in­stead of lead­er­ship and ob­struc­tion in­stead of ful­fill­ing his con­sti­tu­tion­al du­ty to cit­i­zens.”

“This be­hav­iour is a se­ri­ous dere­lic­tion of du­ty. At a time when the pub­lic is al­ready un­nerved by the Gov­ern­ment’s er­rat­ic and se­cre­tive han­dling of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters, Min­is­ter Sturge con­tin­ues be­hav­ing as though trans­paren­cy is op­tion­al and ac­count­abil­i­ty is be­neath him.”