Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has hit back at Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath who re­cent­ly claimed that she had failed to con­tribute to the two bills de­bat­ed in the Low­er House. She said no one will dic­tate when she speaks. 

On Mon­day, Padarath ac­cused Beck­les of be­ing silent for the last ten years dur­ing the Dr Kei­th Row­ley-ad­min­is­tra­tion. He said her si­lence has re­sult­ed in mur­der and may­hem.

He added that since be­ing thrown in­to op­po­si­tion, Beck­les has been ab­sent, un­script­ed and not present. He al­so claimed that on the oc­ca­sion she did speak, she used a pre­pared text.

At a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Beck­les de­fend­ed her par­lia­men­tary con­tri­bu­tions and point­ed out that she had been speak­ing in the Par­lia­ment since 1995. 

Beck­les told Padarath to mind his busi­ness.

“He will not de­ter­mine when I speak. I have a chief whip, I’m the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion. I de­ter­mine when I speak so I am not tak­ing him on.

“That strat­e­gy that he wants to put for­ward will ab­solute­ly not work. They should ask them­selves since the Par­lia­ment start­ed, how many times did they call Par­lia­ment? That is the ques­tion they should be ask­ing rather than how many times I spoke.

“That is none of their busi­ness but I un­der­stand their strat­e­gy will not work,” she said.