Akash Sama­roo

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

For­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Symon de No­bri­ga is de­fend­ing the num­ber of vir­tu­al cab­i­net meet­ings the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion had dur­ing 2020 and 2025, say­ing most of them were dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­so re­spond­ed by say­ing he is ig­nor­ing this “non is­sue.”

On Thurs­day evening, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­vealed that, ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion from the Cab­i­net’s sec­re­tari­at, for the pe­ri­od 2020 to 2025, a to­tal of 298 cab­i­net meet­ings were held vir­tu­al­ly by the PNM gov­ern­ment.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made these com­ments in re­sponse to crit­i­cisms that she was work­ing from her home in Phillip­ine, San Fer­nan­do, and not at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre or White­hall, which are des­ig­nat­ed for use by the Prime Min­is­ter.

“One day I stayed home this week, when was it? Mon­day. And I didn’t just stay home, we were work­ing as you saw peo­ple com­ing and go­ing with these big fold­ers,” she said.

The Prime Min­is­ter added, “Cor­po­ra­tions larg­er than a na­tion like T&T run their busi­ness vir­tu­al­ly around the world, so what’s wrong with vir­tu­al?”

Ref­er­enc­ing the da­ta she re­quest­ed from the Cab­i­net Sec­re­tari­at, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “So 298 cab­i­net meet­ings in that five-year pe­ri­od. And not on­ly in COVID, the most re­cent one was Jan­u­ary 2025. Ba­si­cal­ly, you have one cab­i­net meet­ing per week, some­times more than one, so if you mul­ti­ply and di­vide, 298 meet­ings vir­tu­al­ly di­vid­ed by 52 weeks per year, you know how much years of vir­tu­als? About five and a half years of vir­tu­al meet­ings.”

She added, “In ad­di­tion to cab­i­net meet­ings, you have sub­com­mit­tees of the cab­i­net. These are F&GPC (Fi­nance and Gen­er­al Pur­pos­es Com­mit­tee) meet­ings for 2020-2025 that al­so meet once per week, and for these vir­tu­al, 200 F&GPC meet­ings held vir­tu­al­ly, I rest my case.”

Con­tact­ed for a com­ment yes­ter­day, for­mer prime min­is­ter Row­ley would on­ly say, “Some peo­ple and some is­sues and non is­sues are to be ig­nored by me.”

But for­mer com­mu­ni­ca­tions min­is­ter and MP for Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral, Symon de No­bri­ga of­fered more.

“The ma­jor­i­ty of vir­tu­al meet­ings ac­tu­al­ly did hap­pen dur­ing the first half of the 2020-2025 term, which would have been dur­ing COVID and the as­so­ci­at­ed pro­to­cols. This would ap­ply to F&GP as well and to cab­i­net meet­ings out­side of the sched­uled Thurs­day Morn­ing meet­ing.”

De No­bri­ga said there were in­stances af­ter the pan­dem­ic re­stric­tions where meet­ings were held vir­tu­al­ly.

“But those would have been ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances like dur­ing Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee, where min­is­ters could not be away from Par­lia­ment,” he ex­plained.

How­ev­er, he said the for­mer ad­min­is­tra­tion’s last cab­i­net meet­ing would have been on April 24.

“It was in per­son and at White­hall,” he said.

Ef­forts were made to get a re­sponse from the Op­po­si­tion Leader, Pen­ne­lope Beck­es and for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young, how­ev­er, all calls and mes­sages went unan­swered.