GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Two bills on to­day’s House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives agen­da will re­quire spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty votes—in­clud­ing Op­po­si­tion votes—for pas­sage. Al­ready, the UNC has ex­pressed con­cerns.

But three of the five Op­po­si­tion MPs who re­cent­ly spoke out on par­ty ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions—Rush­ton Paray, Dr Rai Rag­bir and Rod­ney Charles—have sig­nalled they’ll do their du­ty in line with the UNC’s po­si­tion and in­ter­nal par­ty mat­ters don’t in­ter­fere with their Par­lia­men­tary du­ty.

Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the House, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, yes­ter­day con­firmed the Con­sti­tu­tion Amend­ment Bill and the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Test­ing and Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion) Bill 2022 are on the agen­da.

The Con­sti­tu­tion Amend­ment bill pro­pos­es to al­low the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) to make act­ing ap­point­ments for the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and deputy CoP with­out hav­ing to seek par­lia­men­tary ap­proval.

Ac­cord­ing to its ex­plana­to­ry notes, the bill re­quires a two-thirds ma­jor­i­ty vote for pas­sage. Par­lia­ment of­fi­cials said that in­volves 28 votes. In ad­di­tion to the Gov­ern­ment’s 22 votes, the votes of about six Op­po­si­tion MPs will be nec­es­sary.

The Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions bill in­volves poly­graph, drug test­ing and bio­met­ric iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of of­fi­cers in the pro­tec­tive ser­vices and Ju­di­cial and Le­gal ser­vices and civ­il ser­vices. De­bate is list­ed to con­tin­ue on this. The bill was first in­tro­duced in Jan­u­ary 2022. Af­ter it lapsed, it was rein­tro­duced in 2023.

This bill re­quires a three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty vote for pas­sage—26 votes. In ad­di­tion to the Gov­ern­ment’s 22 votes, the sup­port of at least four Op­po­si­tion MPs is need­ed.

In Feb­ru­ary, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley had said leg­is­la­tion would have been pre­sent­ed “in the next few weeks or days” to al­low the PolSC to make the act­ing ap­point­ment for CoP and deputy CoP mi­nus hav­ing to seek par­lia­men­tary ap­proval.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar sub­se­quent­ly coun­tered there must be Par­lia­men­tary over­sight and scruti­ny of such ap­point­ments. She said re­mov­ing ap­proval “is a bla­tant at­tempt to un­der­mine pub­lic trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty” and the bill was an­ti-de­mo­c­ra­t­ic.

Yes­ter­day, UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader and Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said the Con­sti­tu­tion bill was, “a ne­far­i­ous at­tempt by the Row­ley Gov­ern­ment to by­pass the en­trenched sys­tem in the ap­point­ment of a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and is a di­a­bol­i­cal at­tempt to im­pose a PNM hack ahead of the gen­er­al elec­tion”.

In a state­ment to the me­dia, he al­so said, “The Gov­ern­ment will be con­front­ed by Op­po­si­tion speak­ers’ com­pelling ar­gu­ments. And we ex­pect all right-think­ing Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment to re­sist this dic­ta­to­r­i­al ero­sion of our democ­ra­cy.”

Full sup­port

Ma­yaro MP Paray said he will be do­ing his du­ty. His po­si­tion was al­so echoed by Charles and Rag­bir.

Paray said, “I’ll con­tin­ue to do my du­ty in and out of the Par­lia­ment. I re­main a loy­al, ded­i­cat­ed Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress mem­ber, I await the call­ing of the date for the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tion. I’ve at­tend­ed all sit­tings so far in­clud­ing a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee as usu­al. My po­si­tion is that our in­ter­nal par­ty mat­ters does not/should not in­ter­fere with our Par­lia­men­tary du­ty.”

Rag­bir, who said he’s at­tend­ing Par­lia­ment as it’s his civic du­ty, added, “I’ll vote with my UNC col­leagues as dic­tat­ed by the chief whip and po­lit­i­cal leader. What­ev­er hap­pens in Par­lia­ment is for T&T’s bet­ter­ment and par­ty is­sues are par­ty is­sues.”

Charles said, “I’ll sup­port the par­ty’s po­si­tion in Par­lia­ment.”

Charles holds a brief­ing to­day with the Na­pari­ma con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive on the theme “T&T at an in­flec­tion point - Three terms in Op­po­si­tion by the UNC and a Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion un­til 2030 will be in­con­ceiv­ably dis­as­trous for T&T.”

MPs who com­plained on Na­tex and lead­er­ship is­sues, Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne and Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly did not re­spond to calls about how they would vote on the bills.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­cent­ly said MPs who break the par­ty line will be ex­pelled un­der UNC’s con­sti­tu­tion.