Hours af­ter the bud­get de­bate col­lapsed, politi­cians from both sides of the po­lit­i­cal di­vide con­tin­ued to blame each oth­er while the cit­i­zen­ry used so­cial me­dia to voice con­cerns about a lack of ac­count­abil­i­ty.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley of “hid­ing from Par­lia­ment” say­ing he chose not to con­tribute to the Bud­get de­bate.

“It is ev­i­dent that this dic­ta­tor can­not de­fend his pun­ish­ing prop­er­ty tax, his fu­el lib­er­al­i­sa­tion plans, and oth­er puni­tive mea­sures which his gov­ern­ment is seek­ing to im­ple­ment in this 2022 bud­get,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar charged.

She con­tend­ed that even PNM min­is­ters seemed con­fused about the col­lapse of the Bud­get de­bate not­ing that apart from the Prime Min­is­ter, sev­er­al key min­is­ters in­clud­ing Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Clarence Ramb­harat, Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan, Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les and Plan­ning Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is failed to con­tribute.

“At around 5.45 pm (on Sat­ur­day), just af­ter MP Roodal Mooni­lal moved a mo­tion for breach of Par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege against AG Faris Al-Rawi, the Gov­ern­ment failed to put for­ward any speak­er to con­tin­ue the de­bate. This in spite of the Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip, MP David Lee of­fer­ing them the op­tion of ad­journ­ing to Mon­day see­ing that Gov­ern­ment MPs were to­tal­ly un­pre­pared,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

But Robin­son-Reg­is in a state­ment said the Op­po­si­tion chose not to re­spond when it was their turn to speak.

“Clear­ly the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, who is rarely in the Par­lia­ment, does not know that the Stand­ing Or­ders per­mit all Min­is­ters, in­clud­ing the Prime Min­is­ter, a right to speak in both Hous­es. Con­se­quent­ly, it is the Op­po­si­tion who clear­ly, hav­ing noth­ing to say, chose to give up their right to speak,” Robin­son-Reg­is said.

She added, “In the nor­mal ebb and flow of the de­bate it was the Op­po­si­tion’s turn to speak.”

She said when the Op­po­si­tion re­fused to speak, the Fi­nance Min­is­ter end­ed the de­bate with aplomb.

En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young al­so charged that the Op­po­si­tion had paint­ed a false nar­ra­tive.

“The dis­hon­esty of the UNC Op­po­si­tion will nev­er cease to amaze.

“Af­ter Min­is­ter Lisa Mor­ris Julien made a ster­ling and strong con­tri­bu­tion in the Bud­get de­bate, the Deputy Speak­er called on the Op­po­si­tion to con­tribute and they re­fused. There were four UNC mem­bers in the Cham­ber who had not yet con­tributed to the de­bate: MPs Lee, Ho­sein, In­dars­ingh and Mooni­lal and all re­fused to join the de­bate. Ac­cord­ing­ly, the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance wound up the de­bate,” Young said.

But Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip David Lee in a press con­fer­ence on Sun­day said the Gov­ern­ment was in con­trol of Par­lia­ment and chose to shut down the de­bate so they would not have to ac­count to the coun­try.

Asked why the Op­po­si­tion had not used the time af­ter Julien’s con­tri­bu­tion to voice con­cerns about as­pects of the Bud­get, Lee said, “We un­der­stand the game they were play­ing. MP Julien spoke but we felt she said noth­ing of sub­stance, so I would not have wast­ed one of our heavy hit­ters to re­spond to Julien.

“Our mem­bers were wait­ing to re­spond to key min­is­ters and we were not go­ing to al­low the Gov­ern­ment to run out the Op­po­si­tion speak­ers where we would not have been able to re­spond to key Min­is­ters,” he said.

He ques­tioned why Min­is­ter Im­bert did not al­low his col­leagues, in­clud­ing the Prime Min­is­ter, the op­por­tu­ni­ty to speak

AG Faris Al-Rawi al­so con­demned the Op­po­si­tion. He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar was not present for the en­tire sit­ting. 

“Fur­ther, young mem­bers such as Ani­ta Haynes were seen leav­ing the Par­lia­ment with all bags in tow ear­ly in the sit­ting,” Al-Rawi said.

Mean­while, Oropouche MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said the Op­po­si­tion has writ­ten to the Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives seek­ing leave to move a mo­tion of Priv­i­leges against Al-Rawi.

“In an at­tempt to de­flect from the many dam­ag­ing al­le­ga­tions against his con­duct while in of­fice, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi made mis­lead­ing and false state­ments dur­ing his Bud­get pre­sen­ta­tion.”