Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning was eject­ed from Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day fol­low­ing a heat­ed con­fronta­tion with House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh over his at­tempts to ques­tion a re­duc­tion in fund­ing for the San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion.

The clash un­fold­ed dur­ing the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee’s ex­am­i­na­tion of the 2027 Bud­get es­ti­mates, with Singh, act­ing as chair­man, in­sist­ing that Man­ning had missed his op­por­tu­ni­ty to ask fur­ther ques­tions be­fore the com­mit­tee moved on to an­oth­er mu­nic­i­pal cor­po­ra­tion.

Man­ning, how­ev­er, main­tained that he had raised his hand be­fore the com­mit­tee pro­ceed­ed and ac­cused the chair­man of over­look­ing San Fer­nan­do.

“Sir, San Fer­nan­do is an im­por­tant cor­po­ra­tion. We’re not go­ing to skip it over,” Man­ning protest­ed.

The MP re­peat­ed­ly sought per­mis­sion to ques­tion why an al­lo­ca­tion for the cor­po­ra­tion had been re­duced from ap­prox­i­mate­ly $15 mil­lion to $3 mil­lion.

“Mr Chair­man, the bud­get has been re­duced from $15 mil­lion to $3 mil­lion. I would like to know why. And the peo­ple of San Fer­nan­do would like to know why,” he in­sist­ed.

But Singh main­tained that the com­mit­tee had al­ready moved on and that Man­ning should have raised his ques­tions ear­li­er.

“You should have asked it when you had the chance,” Singh re­spond­ed.

The ex­change be­came in­creas­ing­ly tense when Man­ning ac­cused Singh of dis­crim­i­na­tion.

“That’s an en­tire­ly un­war­rant­ed ac­cu­sa­tion,” Singh re­spond­ed, re­ject­ing the al­le­ga­tion.

De­spite re­peat­ed warn­ings, Man­ning con­tin­ued de­mand­ing an­swers about San Fer­nan­do’s fund­ing.

Singh even­tu­al­ly or­dered him to leave the cham­ber.

“San Fer­nan­do East, take a walk for the rest of the evening. We’ll see you to­mor­row,” the Speak­er de­clared.

When Man­ning con­tin­ued protest­ing, Singh in­struct­ed the mar­shal to es­cort him out.

“I don’t need any es­cort. I’m fine,” Man­ning re­spond­ed.

The con­fronta­tion did not end there.

Singh sub­se­quent­ly an­nounced that he was for­mal­ly nam­ing Man­ning, ac­cus­ing him of us­ing ob­jec­tion­able, abu­sive and of­fen­sive lan­guage.

“I am not pre­pared to tol­er­ate that from any­one,” he warned.

How­ev­er, af­ter ini­tial­ly invit­ing a mo­tion against the MP, Singh ruled that no fur­ther dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion should pro­ceed.

He said im­pos­ing an­oth­er sanc­tion would amount to dou­ble pun­ish­ment.

De­fend­ing his han­dling of the pro­ceed­ings, Singh in­sist­ed he had shown con­sid­er­able pa­tience and had not de­lib­er­ate­ly by­passed San Fer­nan­do.

He warned that his tol­er­ance had lim­its.

Quot­ing for­mer British Prime Min­is­ter Win­ston Churchill, Singh de­clared, “This is not the end. Nei­ther is it to be viewed as the be­gin­ning of the end. But what it most cer­tain­ly is, it is the end of the be­gin­ning.”

Re­spond­ing to his ejec­tion from Par­lia­ment, Man­ning said he at­tempt­ed to raise con­cerns about pos­si­ble bias and vic­tim­i­sa­tion dur­ing the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee pro­ceed­ings.

“I re­peat­ed­ly in­sist­ed that ques­tions about San Fer­nan­do must not be ig­nored, but they were,” Man­ning said.

He claimed he bare­ly man­aged to ask one ques­tion be­fore be­ing or­dered out of the cham­ber.

Man­ning de­scribed the sub­se­quent call for the Mar­shal to es­cort him out as “dra­mat­ic and un­nec­es­sary.”