Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les says she has re­quest­ed re­ports from Sen­a­tors Janelle John-Bates and Faris Al-Rawi and will de­ter­mine their fu­ture as Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) sen­a­tors af­ter re­view­ing the in­for­ma­tion.

Beck­les, speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia in New York af­ter the Amer­i­can Foun­da­tion for The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (AFUWI) host­ed its 29th An­nu­al “The Lega­cy Con­tin­ues” Awards Gala on Fri­day, said the process must be guid­ed by facts and di­rect en­gage­ment with the in­di­vid­u­als in­volved.

It comes af­ter it was re­vealed that both sen­a­tors al­leged­ly as­sist­ed for­mer health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh with his state­ment when he was due to ap­pear be­fore a Pub­lic Ac­counts Ap­pro­pri­a­tion Com­mit­tee.

“The truth is that the first thing you do as a leader is to have the prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion. I mean, I am go­ing to do my in­ves­ti­ga­tion. I’ve had a chat with her. She’s go­ing to pro­vide me with a re­port. And that is go­ing to in­flu­ence the de­ci­sion that I made. She has been an ex­cel­lent sen­a­tor,” Beck­les said.

She added that lead­er­ship re­quires giv­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties while al­so ad­dress­ing chal­lenges when they arise.

“I mean, I, as a leader, you give op­por­tu­ni­ties to young per­sons. And from time to time, you will have some chal­lenges. But when­ev­er you have to make a de­ci­sion such as that, which is a se­ri­ous one, you must en­sure that you have all the facts set be­fore you,” she said.

Beck­les said she in­tends to meet with John-Bates to clar­i­fy the cir­cum­stances out­lined in the re­port.

“And when I re­turn to Trinidad, I will speak with her and at least sat­is­fy my­self as to ex­act­ly what took place,” she said.

On Al-Rawi, Beck­les con­firmed that he has al­so been asked to sub­mit a re­port and will be en­gaged di­rect­ly.

“I’ve al­so asked him for a re­port as well, be­cause, I mean, I’ve looked at, I’ve been in Trinidad when the com­mit­tee met. But I’ve al­so asked him for a re­port. And I would al­so, as well, speak with him on the mat­ter,” she said.

Beck­les said pub­lic re­ports alone would not de­ter­mine her de­ci­sion.

“Well, as I said, the most im­por­tant thing is to en­sure that, yes, you have seen what is in news­pa­pers. You have seen what’s on the tele­vi­sion. But you have to make sure that you get all the im­por­tant in­for­ma­tion, get the re­port, speak with them first. And once I do that, then I think I’ll be in a good place to make my de­ci­sion,” she said.

She did not in­di­cate a time­line for the fi­nal de­ci­sion.