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Sunday, July 6, 2025

MPs 'sorry' after calls for them to go before Privileges Committee

by

Jesse Ramdeo
17 days ago
20250619

Par­lia­ment de­scend­ed in­to a heat­ed ex­change yes­ter­day as both the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion MPS called for mem­bers from the op­pos­ing bench­es to be re­ferred to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee over al­leged­ly mis­lead­ing the House.

How­ev­er, the ac­cused Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment lat­er apol­o­gised to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

San Juan/Barataria MP and Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries, Sad­dam Ho­sein, raised a com­plaint against for­mer min­is­ter of fi­nance Colm Im­bert, ac­cus­ing him of mak­ing a mis­lead­ing le­gal claim to sti­fle de­bate on the con­tro­ver­sial Trinidad and To­ba­go Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty (TTRA) Re­peal Bill last Fri­day.

Ho­sein ar­gued that Im­bert, by cit­ing Stand­ing Or­der 49 and de­clar­ing that the mat­ter was sub ju­dice, had mis­led the House since the Court of Ap­peal had al­ready struck down the case in ques­tion ear­li­er this year.

“This mo­tion is ground­ed in the fact that the mem­ber for Diego Mar­tin North/East de­lib­er­ate­ly mis­led this ho­n­ourable House, this Speak­er, and by ex­ten­sion, the view­ing pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go as he knew or ought to have known the state­ment he made was a de­lib­er­ate un­truth, false and in­cor­rect,” Ho­sein stat­ed.

Im­bert lat­er rose to the floor and not­ed that he had not re­ceived any sta­tus re­port on the mat­ter be­fore the de­bate.

“This is what caused me to be­lieve and state in good faith that the ap­peal was still alive, es­pe­cial­ly since the sta­tus of the ap­peal had not been re­port­ed or pub­lished any­where, and in our ju­ris­dic­tion, it is com­mon­place that ap­peals of this na­ture to take sev­er­al years to be heard and de­ter­mined,” Im­bert said.

Im­bert is­sued an apol­o­gy.

“I wish to un­re­served­ly apol­o­gise for my mis­state­ment in the House on Fri­day, June 30th, 2024 re­gard­ing the sta­tus of civ­il ap­peal 268 of 2022.”

Dur­ing the sit­ting, the po­lit­i­cal tit-for-tat con­tin­ued as Arou­ca/Lopinot MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les rose to file a com­plaint against To­co/San­gre Grande MP and Min­is­ter of De­fence, Wayne Sturge.

Gon­za­les ac­cused Sturge of in­ten­tion­al­ly mis­lead­ing the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee on Mon­day by stat­ing that for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi was the own­er of Agra Court, a build­ing rent­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

Gon­za­les in­sist­ed that the claim was fac­tu­al­ly in­cor­rect and defam­a­to­ry.

“I served as min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in the last gov­ern­ment and al­so served as a mem­ber of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil for sev­er­al years and had full ac­cess to cab­i­net notes, min­utes, re­ports and notes rel­a­tive to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and so I would have been aware of any rental of any prop­er­ty by Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi, SC, to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice,” Gon­za­les charged.

Sturge clar­i­fied that he did not re­fer to le­gal own­er­ship.

In­stead, he main­tained that Al-Rawi had a “ben­e­fi­cial in­ter­est” in the build­ing through fam­i­ly ties.

“The build­ing is in fact, owned by the fa­ther-in-law and wife of Faris Al-Rawi, so that Faris Al-Rawi and for those who un­der­stand the law, Faris Al-Rawi has a ben­e­fi­cial in­ter­est in that prop­er­ty.”

Sturge re­it­er­at­ed that his orig­i­nal state­ment was not about for­mal le­gal own­er­ship, but about the con­nec­tion be­tween the prop­er­ty’s ben­e­fi­cia­ries and the for­mer min­is­ter.

“Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi is the ben­e­fi­cial own­er, so to that ex­tent I apol­o­gise for not giv­ing the strict in­ter­pre­ta­tion.”

House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh ac­knowl­edged both mat­ters and de­ferred judge­ment, not­ing that he would is­sue for­mal rul­ings at a lat­er date.


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