RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Calls are be­ing made for Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­move Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee as deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip and MP for Pointe-a-Pierre.

But so far Per­sad-Bisses­sar has not com­ment­ed on whether she in­tends to act against the MP who has won his seat twice. 

Be­fore the charges were laid, Per­sad-Bisses­sar had spo­ken out in de­fence of Lee in­sist­ing that he had done noth­ing il­le­gal.

Last Au­gust, she urged the po­lice to charge Lee if they had ev­i­dence against him.

At that time she said it was an at­tempt to “nasty peo­ple’s names,” warn­ing that the UNC had enough good lawyers to suc­cess­ful­ly de­fend Lee.

Mean­while, there have been mixed views from Lee’s con­stituents about the mat­ter. 

Con­stituent Clive Roodal said it was pos­si­ble that Lee was be­ing tar­get­ed by the po­lice and the Gov­ern­ment.

How­ev­er, he de­scribed Lee as a failed MP who should re­sign.

“We could nev­er know if this is the rea­son but per­son­al­ly I think he should re­sign as MP be­cause he does noth­ing for the peo­ple of Clax­ton Bay. Two times we protest­ed and we did not see him at all,” Roodal said.

Sav­it­ri Kaliper­sad claimed Lee was be­ing tar­get­ed be­cause he was speak­ing out against the Gov­ern­ment.

“He is our MP and has served us well. The PNM want to stop him from speak­ing out so they have these charges with the hope that he will stop talk­ing but the plan will back­fire and he will win his case in court,” Kaliper­sad said. 

Scrap iron work­er Ramesh Ram­sa­roop called on Lee to re­sign say­ing too many politi­cians were fail­ing the peo­ple.

“Poor peo­ple suf­fer­ing out here and these politi­cians don’t care about us. Re­sign now and let some­one else take over be­cause you should not be there,” Ram­sa­roop said.

He added that scrap iron work­ers had staged protests all over Clax­ton Bay and Bar­rack­pore and Lee failed to show sup­port.

Mean­while, on so­cial me­dia calls were al­so made for his res­ig­na­tion.

Tere­sa Lynch wrote: “I ea­ger­ly await a state­ment by the Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar of not on­ly his re­moval as the op­po­si­tion (UNC) Chief Whip but al­so his res­ig­na­tion as Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment.”

Can­dice Ma­haraj wrote: “David Lee must re­sign as Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the UNC, Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip and MP for Pointe a Pierre, as many MPs who have been ac­cused of cor­rup­tion and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic life have done be­fore him. It is the right thing to do, but by his track record, that will not hap­pen and Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar must re­move him im­me­di­ate­ly.”

Lee was slapped with two charges of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and con­spir­a­cy to de­fraud the State.

He is on $1 mil­lion bail.

It is al­leged that Lee con­spired with an­oth­er per­son to de­fraud the State of $1,416,292.65 for the pur­chase of a Mer­cedes Benz AMG g63 Wag­on mo­tor ve­hi­cle.

That ex­emp­tion was grant­ed on May 23, 2019, and in­clud­ed $293,094.02 in Val­ue Added Tax (VAT), $298,650 in mo­tor ve­hi­cle tax and $824,548.63 in Cus­toms du­ty.

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UNC Na­tion­al Women’s Arm sup­ports him

Mean­while, UNC ac­tivists con­tin­ued to throw their sup­port be­hind Lee.

Pub­lic Re­gards of­fi­cer UNC Na­tion­al Women’s Arm Marisa Ram­lo­gan told Guardian Me­dia, “There is a process and it will be go­ing to the courts. I be­lieve in jus­tice and at the end of the day, let the courts de­cide.”

She added: “He pro­vid­ed all the in­for­ma­tion and we stand in sup­port of him. There is a mat­ter with the for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and to­day we heard the Po­lice had dropped the mat­ter. I want to see what hap­pens with this case against Mr Lee,” Ram­lo­gan said.

Mean­while, the chair­man of the Cou­va North Con­stituen­cy Ex­ec­u­tive Or­lan­do Nages­sar said it stood in sup­port of David Lee and his “trumped-up charges.”

“One has to won­der if these charges are de­lib­er­ate, cal­cu­lat­ed and well timed as it was on­ly ear­li­er this week David Lee ex­posed the Gov­ern­ment on en­er­gy mat­ters. This has been the nor­mal tac­tic of the Gov­ern­ment as an at­tempt to dis­tract and hood­wink the pop­u­la­tion on the fail­ure of this ad­min­is­tra­tion and is­sues af­fect­ing our coun­try,” Nages­sar said.

He added: “The peo­ple of T&T con­tin­ue to ask for an­swers with re­gards to mat­ters in­volv­ing, Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi and Roger Kawals­ingh, Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley’s in­ter­fer­ence in the se­lec­tion of a Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son Reg­is’s $143,800 cash de­posit in RBL and the list goes on,” Nages­sar said.

In a state­ment is­sued on Sat­ur­day, Lee said he is in­no­cent of all charges and is await­ing his day in court to prove it.

 “At no time did I con­tra­vene, con­spire, or seek to de­fraud the state or its in­sti­tu­tions through the ac­cess of ex­emp­tions for the pur­chase of a ve­hi­cle which all Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment are al­lowed,” he said.

 Say­ing the ev­i­dence will show that the trans­ac­tion was done with­in the con­fines of the law, Lee re­vealed: “To this very day, the ve­hi­cle is owned by me, the ve­hi­cle re­mains in my name, the ve­hi­cle’s in­sur­ance is in my name, the loan agree­ment is in my name as all doc­u­men­ta­tion sup­ports the fact that I am the own­er of the ve­hi­cle in ques­tion.”

 Say­ing he has al­ways been trans­par­ent with the own­er­ship of this ve­hi­cle, Lee said: “I have record­ed it each year since its ac­qui­si­tion on my an­nu­al de­c­la­ra­tion to the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. Put sim­ply, I have been charged for a ve­hi­cle that I am the le­gal own­er of, but this is an is­sue I am con­fi­dent, giv­en the proof, will be vin­di­cat­ed in our na­tion’s courts.”

De­spite the charges, Lee said he will con­tin­ue to do his job.