The Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is go­ing to court on the two ex­emp­tion or­ders for the Cari­com Sum­mit and Ju­di­cia­ry mat­ters which were done by Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert, ac­cord­ing to UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark.

Mark re­vealed this in his con­tri­bu­tion to Thurs­day’s Sen­ate de­bate on the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty (Amend­ment and Val­i­da­tion Bill) 2023. The amend­ments seek to make changes to the pro­cure­ment law, in­clud­ing val­i­dat­ing the two ex­emp­tion or­ders signed by Im­bert to ex­empt costs as­so­ci­at­ed with host­ing the re­cent Cari­com Sum­mit and mat­ters about the Ju­di­cia­ry, from pro­cure­ment law.

Im­bert had cit­ed the lengthy process­es re­quired by the law which had jeop­ar­dised host­ing the sum­mit in T&T. The venue for the sum­mit was changed to this coun­try by Do­mini­ca’s Prime Min­is­ter Roo­sevelt Sker­rit who is the chair­man of Cari­com.

The UNC had chal­lenged the Gov­ern­ment on the Or­ders which had to be ap­proved by Par­lia­ment and sent pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters. How­ev­er, the Gov­ern­ment not­ed the Or­ders would be val­i­dat­ed in Par­lia­ment this week with amend­ments and there was no need for le­gal ac­tion.

Yes­ter­day, Mark al­leged Im­bert act­ed un­law­ful­ly re­gard­ing the ex­emp­tion or­ders. Im­bert ob­ject­ed to Mark in­sin­u­at­ing im­prop­er mo­tive, adding it was un­true. Mark was warned by Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Nigel de Fre­itas. How­ev­er, Mark, query­ing why the Or­ders were be­ing val­i­dat­ed, felt that could on­ly be done if one took a wrong de­ci­sion. Im­bert re­peat­ed his ob­jec­tions and de Fre­itas again warned Mark.

Mark de­clared, “We’re go­ing to court on this mat­ter! I’ll call the rel­e­vant par­ties to the courts and let them tell the court that what we’re say­ing is wrong.

“So if it can­not be solved here, High Court will ad­dress this. So we serve no­tice on (Im­bert), pre­pare to come to the courts!”

Mark added Im­bert’s state­ment on the amend­ments was “weak and tried to de­fend the in­de­fen­si­ble”—but did not ex­plain the two ex­emp­tion or­ders. He said the amend­ments were “preg­nant with dan­ger for democ­ra­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy ... These amend­ments con­sti­tute brazen ban­dit­ry!”

He de­mand­ed that Im­bert leave the Par­lia­ment and bring the ev­i­dence of what was spent at the Cari­com Sum­mit and the names of sup­pli­ers and con­trac­tors in­volved.

“How can we be called to a spe­cial sit­ting of the Sen­ate and we have no ev­i­dence. That’s in­sult­ing and dis­re­spect­ful and a con­tempt of every Sen­a­tor,” said Mark.

He said the UNC sup­port­ed a press re­lease con­cern­ing a call from the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil, T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, Amer­i­can Cham­ber of Com­merce and T&T Trans­paren­cy In­sti­tute for the Gov­ern­ment to with­draw the amend­ments. He said they dis­agreed with the amend­ment for neg­a­tive res­o­lu­tion of changes to the bill and called for Gov­ern­ment to meet the groups.

“We join them by call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to with­draw this ne­far­i­ous law … These amend­ments will bury the pro­cure­ment law!”

Mean­while, Mark had to apol­o­gise to In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Paul Richards whom he called the “Leader of the In­de­pen­dent bench”. Richards cor­rect­ed Mark that he was the co­or­di­na­tor. (GA)