Opposition Senator Wade Mark says Government Senator Nigel De Freitas should not have been elevated to Senate President without a “cooling-off” period from his ministerial portfolio.
Mark said the situation is different from when he was appointed Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2010 because De Freitas gave up his portfolio in the Ministry of Agriculture just hours before he was appointed Senate President yesterday.
He said although he had congratulated De Freitas after the announcement was made, he was not happy with the appointment.
“I find it quite unsatisfactory and disappointing that a government can take someone who is a minister, a Minister in a Ministry of Agriculture just a few hours ago, disrobe him, or rob him of his robe and just put him in the seat of an office that supposed to have certain tenets and principles, impartiality, neutrality, unbiased conduct,” he said.
De Freitas, who has replaced Christine Kangaloo as Senate President, was elected unopposed during yesterday’s sitting of the Senate.
In announcing the appointment, Leader of Government Business Senator Amery Browne confirmed that de Freitas will no longer hold the post of Minister in the Ministry of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries.
Kangaloo resigned as Senate President ahead of tomorrow’s Electoral College vote for the seventh President of T&T. She is the government’s nominee for the post.
Central businessman Richie Sookhai, who has been appointed a Government Senator, stepped down as president of the Chaguanas Chamber of Commerce to accept the appointment.
Mark said he is not discounting De Freitas’ ability to be unbiased but believes someone else should have been chosen for the position, especially since the Senate President acts as President whenever the holder of that office is not in the jurisdiction.
The United National Congress (UNC) has raised several concerns about the nomination of now-former Senate President Christine Kangaroo to become T&T’s seventh President. Mark repeated those yesterday.
“You have a politician leaving the bench as President to go into President’s House as a result of what will take place on Friday, so you have an active, card-carrying President in charge of the highest office of the land and then you bring another active politician who was the Minister in the Ministry of Agriculture to sit as the president,” he said.
He said when he was appointed Speaker in 2010 it was not under the same circumstances.
“We went through an election and the people voted for us and during that period there was a hiatus, so we had six weeks, or five weeks of campaigning and I was a member of the opposition party, so even though I was elevated as a Speaker I was not a sitting member of a Cabinet,” Mark said.
He said De Freitas should not be moved from “zone to zone” without a cooling-off period.
Asked about the appointment of businessman Richie Sookhai as a Government Senator, Mark said the UNC is not worried.
He said he was told Sookhai was a former member of the UNC but he would have to check whether that was true.
“We do not see Richie Sookhai as any threat to the United National Congress. We are going to bury the PNM whenever Dr Rowley calls the next general election and Sookhai or no Sookhai, it will be suck-eye,” Mark said.
Independent Senator Dr Varma Deyalsingh described the day’s sitting as interesting. He said he was pleased with De Freitas’ appointment as he always found him to be fair whenever he acted as Senate President.
“He has shown before that he has filled that role adequately. He was always a fair person, he was always independent on that bench as vice-president and I think he knows all the legislation, the ins and outs, the rules of the house so overall I am pleased with what happened this morning,” Deyalsingh said.
He described Sookhai’s appointment as a good political strategy, saying it could be seen as the ruling PNM reaching out to different demographics.
“Business, East Indian, Hindu. I think it’s a good move politically, I think it’s a good move in terms of a strategy because we need business input in most of the bills that come into here.
“Business will come into energy bills, all other bills, even bills where you have persons in distress, social services, he will have an excellent input and I look forward to his contribution,” he said.