KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

kay-marie.fletch­er

@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is stand­ing by her cri­tique of in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, fur­ther ques­tion­ing the in­tegri­ty and im­par­tial­i­ty of the nine-mem­ber bench.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ferred to the in­de­pen­dents as “pres­i­dent-ap­point­ed bootlick­er sen­a­tors” and de­fend­ed her pre­vi­ous state­ments.

“My opin­ions on both the pres­i­dent-ap­point­ed bootlick­er sen­a­tors and the self-serv­ing En­er­gy Cham­ber are not new. I voiced those same sen­ti­ments while I was Op­po­si­tion Leader,” she said.

The Prime Min­is­ter ac­cused in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors of ad­vanc­ing the spe­cial in­ter­ests of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), cit­ing sev­er­al for­mer sen­a­tors as ex­am­ples.

“The en­tire coun­try knows the PNM pres­i­dent’s sen­a­tors are cho­sen to rep­re­sent PNM spe­cial in­ter­est groups. In the pre­vi­ous Par­lia­ment, we had a fe­male pres­i­dent’s sen­a­tor de­vel­op­ing land in To­ba­go with a for­mer PNM MP, an­oth­er re­ceiv­ing le­gal briefs, a third re­ceiv­ing con­tracts, and a fourth re­ceiv­ing con­sul­tan­cy work and trips abroad.

“We even had one walk out of the Sen­ate in­to mul­ti­ple PNM boards with­out an io­ta of shame. It’s an open se­cret in po­lit­i­cal cir­cles that many of the pres­i­dent’s sen­a­tors trade their votes on spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty bills for PNM spe­cial in­ter­ests,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She al­so crit­i­cised sev­er­al heads of in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tions, in­clud­ing the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty (PCA), Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC), and the for­mer Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor, al­leg­ing links to the PNM.

“Re­gard­ing in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tions, which ones ex­act­ly are peo­ple re­fer­ring to? 1. Chair of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion Haydn Git­tens is the next-door neigh­bour of for­mer Speak­er Brigid Anisette-George. 2. Di­rec­tor of the PCA David West is a wit­ness for for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley in a le­gal case. 3. For­mer Gov­er­nor of the Cen­tral Bank Alvin Hi­laire is a neigh­bour of Row­ley in To­ba­go’s In­ez Gate de­vel­op­ment. 4. PSC mer­it list fi­as­co al­lowed Row­ley to in­ter­fere in CoP se­lec­tion. 5. All ser­vice com­mis­sions are en­trenched with PNM af­fil­i­ates who send fam­i­ly and friends for job ap­provals, by­pass­ing qual­i­fied ap­pli­cants. 6. The Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent is filled by Row­ley with low-lev­el PNM func­tionary Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo. 7. Nu­mer­ous pres­i­dent-ap­point­ed sen­a­tors over suc­ces­sive par­lia­ments have trad­ed votes for con­tracts, favours, trips, jobs for fam­i­ly, hous­es, cash, and hous­ing ap­provals,” she added.

In re­sponse, Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of bul­ly­ing the in­de­pen­dent bench.

Speak­ing at a PNM press con­fer­ence in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Beck­les said, “No gov­ern­ment or op­po­si­tion should en­gage in bul­ly­ing in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors. They are ap­point­ed for a spe­cif­ic pur­pose, and we ben­e­fit from their ex­per­tise. I want to say to the Prime Min­is­ter: stop your bul­ly­ing and use more tem­per­ate lan­guage. If you be­lieve you have the skill to per­suade in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, op­po­si­tion mem­bers, or civ­il so­ci­ety, do not act as though the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go are at­tend­ing kinder­garten. We will have none of it.”

Beck­les claimed the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­cent re­marks, which she called “reck­less,” were in­tend­ed to pres­sure sen­a­tors to vote in favour of the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSOs) Bill.

“This is not an iso­lat­ed in­ci­dent. This gov­ern­ment op­er­ates by bul­ly­ing, and the Prime Min­is­ter con­tin­ues, on every oc­ca­sion where she faces dif­fi­cul­ty, to threat­en and pres­sure peo­ple. These state­ments were made just be­fore the ZOSOs Bill was go­ing be­fore the Sen­ate—lit­er­al­ly to in­tim­i­date sen­a­tors in­to vot­ing,” Beck­les said.

She added, “If you have a pol­i­cy or leg­is­la­tion that is good for the coun­try, there are many ways to per­suade in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors—it cer­tain­ly should not be by bul­ly­ing. Threat­en­ing peo­ple and call­ing them names in hopes they will be afraid and vote for the bill is un­ac­cept­able, and that is what we con­tin­ue to see: gov­er­nance by bul­ly­ing.”