Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The in­tegri­ty of a high-pro­file par­lia­men­tary in­quiry has been thrown in­to ques­tion fol­low­ing al­le­ga­tions that Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates coached a key wit­ness she was tasked with scru­ti­n­is­ing.

On Mon­day, the Pub­lic Ac­counts and Ad­min­is­tra­tion Com­mit­tee (PAAC) met to con­tin­ue its in­quiry ti­tled “The State’s Ac­qui­si­tion of Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals as it Re­lates to the Cur­rent Process­es Ap­plic­a­ble to its Im­por­ta­tion and Ap­proval.”

Sen­a­tor John-Bates is a mem­ber of the PAAC and is there­fore tasked with scru­ti­n­is­ing those who ap­pear be­fore it.

This PAAC has gar­nered spe­cial pub­lic in­ter­est due to the com­mit­tee’s in­tense ques­tion­ing, par­tic­u­lar­ly from chair­man Jagdeo Singh.

Clips of heat­ed in­ter­ac­tions are wide­ly shared on so­cial me­dia plat­forms.

How­ev­er, when the live feed from the Par­lia­ment came up on Mon­day, it was not to re-com­mence the in­quiry, but to of­fer an apol­o­gy from the chair­man for why it had to be post­poned.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing that it is not usu­al for an ex­pla­na­tion to be giv­en for the can­cel­la­tion of a PAAC sit­ting, Singh said he is aware of the pub­lic in­ter­est sur­round­ing it.

“I do not pro­pose to go in­to the rea­sons why. All I can say is to use a neu­tral phrase. It is re­gret­table, but un­avoid­able that we have to ad­journ.”

Guardian Me­dia lat­er learned that the ad­journ­ment was deemed nec­es­sary dur­ing the in-cam­era ses­sion of the sit­ting, which is closed to the pub­lic.

We were re­li­ably in­formed that for­mer Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh had sub­mit­ted a state­ment to the PAAC via a Mi­crosoft Word doc­u­ment.

Dur­ing pre­vi­ous sit­tings, the PAAC ques­tioned Deyals­ingh’s over­sight re­gard­ing a re­port­ed mas­sive surge in spe­cial im­port per­mits used to by­pass for­mal drug reg­is­tra­tion and what it deemed the sig­nif­i­cant wastage of ex­pired med­ica­tion.

How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia was told that the doc­u­ment con­tain­ing Deyals­ingh’s re­sponse to the com­mit­tee con­tained “Track Changes.”

A Track Change is a vi­su­al record of an in­ser­tion, dele­tion or for­mat­ting up­date made to a doc­u­ment, al­low­ing mul­ti­ple ed­i­tors to re­view and ap­prove spe­cif­ic mod­i­fi­ca­tions be­fore they be­come per­ma­nent.

It was then, we were told, that the Com­mit­tee re­alised their col­league Sen­a­tor John-Bates re­port­ed­ly as­sist­ed Deyals­ingh with his state­ment.

It was said that PNM Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi al­so aid­ed Deyals­ingh.

Guardian Me­dia was in­formed that John-Bates was asked about her in­volve­ment, and she con­firmed it. This, we un­der­stand, has raised se­ri­ous ques­tions about ethics.

Guardian Me­dia at­tempt­ed to speak with Sen­a­tor John-Bates about the al­le­ga­tion while she walked to­wards the Red House for yes­ter­day’s sit­ting of the Sen­ate; how­ev­er, she did not stop or ac­knowl­edge the ques­tions and in­stead chose to con­tin­ue her jour­ney in­to the Par­lia­ment.

All calls al­so went unan­swered.

Ques­tions are al­so be­ing asked as to why Sen­a­tor Al-Rawi did not ad­vise Sen­a­tor John-Bates against it.

Asked for com­ment yes­ter­day, Al-Rawi said, “Whilst I am not a mem­ber of the Com­mit­tee you have ref­er­enced, I am bound to point out to you that it would be an of­fence against the rules of Par­lia­ment which may amount to a con­tempt, for a mem­ber or any per­son to speak about the de­lib­er­a­tions and pro­ceed­ings of a com­mit­tee, es­pe­cial­ly mat­ters which may have been con­sid­ered in cam­era, be­fore the re­port of the Com­mit­tee is pub­lished.”

Ques­tions were al­so sent yes­ter­day af­ter­noon via What­sApp to Op­po­si­tion leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les and Sen­a­tor Amery Browne, who is the leader of the PNM sen­ate bench, ask­ing if this mat­ter was en­gag­ing their at­ten­tion. Guardian Me­dia al­so sought a com­ment from Deyals­ingh. None re­spond­ed be­fore press time.

Chair­man of the PAAC, Jagdeo Singh, de­clined to com­ment. The PAAC will now meet on April 27 at 1 PM.

Dur­ing the last sit­ting on March 25, the PAAC ac­cused Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer (CMO) Dr Roshan Paras­ram, who is cur­rent­ly on leave, of ex­er­cis­ing au­thor­i­ty he “plain­ly did not have” by is­su­ing over 2,700 spe­cial im­port per­mits. The com­mit­tee in­tends to sum­mon him to ex­plain why these per­mits were used to by­pass the le­gal reg­is­tra­tion and sci­en­tif­ic scruti­ny of med­ica­tions.