Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les says Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her Gov­ern­ment must al­so an­swer se­ri­ous ques­tions, as she re­spond­ed to ac­cu­sa­tions that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment is con­trolled by out­side in­ter­ests.

In a state­ment to­day, Beck­les re­ject­ed the claims and de­fend­ed the PNM’s ac­tions in Par­lia­ment, while rais­ing con­cerns about con­duct on the Gov­ern­ment’s bench­es.

“I will not be bul­lied or di­rect­ed in these mat­ters, nor will I al­low a Gov­ern­ment on whose bench­es sit per­sons on bail, per­sons who open­ly bran­dish false qual­i­fi­ca­tions, per­sons who are be­fore the courts on var­i­ous mat­ters, and per­sons who en­gage in the most dis­gust­ing and ob­scene be­hav­iour on so­cial me­dia, to de­cide how the Op­po­si­tion must dis­ci­pline or de­ploy its mem­bers,” she said.

Beck­les al­so ad­dressed crit­i­cism over the PNM’s walk­out dur­ing Fri­day’s sit­ting, main­tain­ing it was a prin­ci­pled stand against what she de­scribed as the Gov­ern­ment’s abuse of its par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty and dis­re­gard for Stand­ing Or­ders.

She ac­cused the ad­min­is­tra­tion of ap­ply­ing in­con­sis­tent stan­dards in its re­sponse to the con­tro­ver­sy.

“The Gov­ern­ment is en­gag­ing in se­lec­tive out­rage, at­tempt­ing to ex­pand a spe­cif­ic is­sue be­yond its prop­er scope and ig­nore se­ri­ous pro­ce­dur­al breach­es as high­light­ed in the Mi­nor­i­ty Re­port,” Beck­les said.

“These breach­es are as crit­i­cal as every oth­er breach and must be in­ves­ti­gat­ed with equal vigour.”

The ex­change fol­lows com­ments by Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who ac­cused the PNM lead­er­ship, in­clud­ing Beck­les, of be­ing un­able to act against Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi due to in­flu­ence from par­ty fi­nanciers.

Fri­day’s con­fronta­tion un­fold­ed fol­low­ing a de­bate on a mo­tion to adopt a re­port of the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC) on the con­duct of a mem­ber.

The Gov­ern­ment then sig­nalled its in­ten­tion to have the mo­tion amend­ed to call for con­dem­na­tion of Sen­a­tors Faris Al-Rawi and Janelle John-Bates and to urge Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les to ad­vise the Pres­i­dent to re­voke their ap­point­ments.

Ten­sions es­ca­lat­ed in the cham­ber as Cou­va North MP Jear­lean John crit­i­cised the Op­po­si­tion, as mem­bers walked out.

Em­bat­tled PNM Sen­a­tor John-Bates has of­fered her res­ig­na­tion from the Up­per House to Beck­les, but the Op­po­si­tion Leader has not yet de­cid­ed whether she will ac­cept it.

Mean­while, Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark ruled that both John-Bates and Al-Rawi be re­ferred to the Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges.