Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has backed Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath’s al­le­ga­tions that par­lia­men­tary broad­cast­ing staff have been un­fair­ly mut­ing the mi­cro­phones of Gov­ern­ment mem­bers, say­ing the is­sue has per­sist­ed for years and should be for­mal­ly raised be­fore the Par­lia­men­tary Broad­cast­ing Com­mit­tee.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, re­spond­ing to the con­tro­ver­sy that erupt­ed dur­ing Fri­day night’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee sit­ting, said she too had ex­pe­ri­enced sim­i­lar is­sues.

“It’s to­tal­ly cor­rect. The same hap­pened to me on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions, even up to re­cent­ly.

“We have to bring this up in the Broad­cast Com­mit­tee,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

Her com­ments came af­ter Padarath ac­cused par­lia­men­tary staff re­spon­si­ble for the cham­ber’s au­dio sys­tem of bias, claim­ing Gov­ern­ment mi­cro­phones were be­ing mut­ed while Op­po­si­tion MPs were be­ing al­lowed to speak more clear­ly.

Op­po­si­tion MPs al­so claimed Padarath took a pic­ture of a par­lia­ment tech­ni­cian who was re­spon­si­ble for the au­dio at the time. The Op­po­si­tion MPs claimed this was in­tim­i­da­tion and even urged the staff mem­ber to call the po­lice.

How­ev­er, the Prime Min­is­ter al­so dis­missed al­le­ga­tions that Padarath sought to in­tim­i­date the staff mem­ber by tak­ing his pho­to as, “non­sense.” 

Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter and for­mer Chief Whip David Lee al­so de­fend­ed Padarath, say­ing the is­sue was not new and had been hap­pen­ing for years.

Lee said the prob­lem dat­ed back to his tenure as Chief Whip, from 2016 to 2025, when the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress was in Op­po­si­tion.

“When we were in op­po­si­tion and we tried to ex­er­cise our right to be heard, our mics used to be mut­ed.”

Lee said the is­sue af­fect­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar when she was Op­po­si­tion leader and con­tin­ued to af­fect Gov­ern­ment MPs now that the UNC was in of­fice.

“It hap­pened with the then op­po­si­tion leader, who is now the Prime Min­is­ter. It hap­pened with near­ly every one of us when we were in op­po­si­tion. And it con­tin­ued to this day for us now as Gov­ern­ment mem­bers,” he said.

Lee said Fri­day night’s con­fronta­tion came af­ter mount­ing frus­tra­tion on the Gov­ern­ment bench dur­ing the marathon Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee sit­ting.

“What you wit­nessed last night was a boil­ing point where who­ev­er con­trols the mics, you were hear­ing the Op­po­si­tion speak­ers and you weren’t hear­ing the Gov­ern­ment speak­ers,” he said.

He stressed that Gov­ern­ment MPs were not ask­ing for spe­cial treat­ment, on­ly fair­ness.

“We are the gov­ern­ment. We are not say­ing that we ex­pect to be treat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly or un­fair­ly. We are ask­ing for fair­ness,” Lee said.

Lee al­so de­fend­ed Speak­er Jagdeo Singh, say­ing he al­lowed more en­gage­ment dur­ing the com­mit­tee than had been per­mit­ted un­der for­mer Speak­er Brigid An­nisette-George.

But he said there re­mained a se­ri­ous prob­lem with the Par­lia­ment’s broad­cast­ing and au­dio sys­tem.

“Some­thing is to­tal­ly wrong about that whole broad­cast­ing au­dio sys­tem and who con­trols the whole broad­cast­ing au­dio sys­tem in the cham­bers,” he said.

Lee said there were oc­ca­sions when Gov­ern­ment MPs at­tempt­ed to use two mi­cro­phones to im­prove au­di­bil­i­ty, on­ly for one to be turned off, while he claimed Op­po­si­tion MPs were al­lowed to use two mi­cro­phones in sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances.

“They would take off one of the mics. They would nev­er al­low us to have two mics on. But when the Op­po­si­tion is de­bat­ing and they do the same thing, they al­low them to have their two mics on,” Lee said.

Mor­ris: Ev­i­dence to sug­gest mics were mut­ed

Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Nicholas Mor­ris al­so sup­port­ed Padarath’s stance, say­ing he had per­son­al­ly ob­served what he de­scribed as un­fair treat­ment in the cham­ber.

Mor­ris said he had served as a re­searcher to the Op­po­si­tion for al­most ten years, from 2016 to 2025, and had wit­nessed mi­cro­phones be­ing cut un­fair­ly dur­ing that pe­ri­od.

“When we were in op­po­si­tion, the mics of the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion and Op­po­si­tion mem­bers were rou­tine­ly cut un­fair­ly. There’s video ev­i­dence to sug­gest that,” Mor­ris said.

He said the same thing was now hap­pen­ing to Gov­ern­ment MPs.

“I have seen time and time again where my col­leagues on the Gov­ern­ment bench, their mics have been turned off un­fair­ly while en­gag­ing and the Op­po­si­tion mics are re­main­ing on,” he said.

Mor­ris said he sup­port­ed Padarath’s claims and in­sist­ed the mat­ter could not be ig­nored.

He al­so point­ed to what he de­scribed as un­even treat­ment on Par­lia­ment’s so­cial me­dia plat­forms, claim­ing a re­cent con­tri­bu­tion by the Prime Min­is­ter was not high­light­ed in the same way as Op­po­si­tion con­tri­bu­tions.

The Ma­yaro MP said any­one seek­ing to un­der­stand the Gov­ern­ment’s con­cerns should ex­am­ine the Par­lia­ment’s Face­book page.

“You will see the Par­lia­ment post-up, Leader of the Op­po­si­tion pre­sent­ing, then the post-up big pic­ture of every­body in Par­lia­ment sit­ting down, and then they post (Kei­th) Scot­land. There’s no post of the Prime Min­is­ter con­tribut­ing. How could that be?” Mor­ris said.

He stopped short of di­rect­ly ac­cus­ing any­one of de­lib­er­ate bias, say­ing he was not cast­ing as­per­sions on who was re­spon­si­ble.

But Mor­ris said the is­sue had to be ex­am­ined close­ly.

“If you re­al­ly, tru­ly want to un­der­stand the lev­el of un­fair­ness that is met­ed to the Gov­ern­ment at times, I cast no as­per­sions on who is do­ing it and how it is be­ing done, but it’s some­thing you have to zone in­to,” he said.

Mor­ris re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that Padarath had en­gaged in in­tim­i­da­tion, say­ing the Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness was try­ing to un­der­stand why the sit­u­a­tion was oc­cur­ring.

“Min­is­ter Padarath has nev­er en­gaged in any in­tim­i­da­tion ac­tion,” he said.

“What­ev­er ac­tion he would have tak­en, it is just so we could be­gin to un­der­stand why this sit­u­a­tion is hap­pen­ing.”

He added that Gov­ern­ment MPs re­spect­ed the work of par­lia­men­tary staff.

St Au­gus­tine MP Khadi­jah Ameen al­so stood in sup­port of Padarath and told Guardian Me­dia the prob­lem has per­sist­ed for years.

Guardian Me­dia al­so sought a re­sponse from a Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor. Sen­a­tor Phillip Alexan­der was asked whether his mi­cro­phone had ever been mut­ed while he was speak­ing and whether he shared con­cerns that some par­lia­men­tary staff may have dis­played bias in their du­ties.

Alexan­der re­spond­ed, “We’ve seen tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties, I don’t know what to as­cribe it to, but there are things in the Par­lia­ment that are not to the stan­dard that it should be, and we’ve had the con­ver­sa­tions as a group, as peo­ple who use the fa­cil­i­ties.”

“So we hope that we get some change. It should not have to come to such a se­ri­ous thing, but Par­lia­ment is the high­est court in the land, and this is where the se­ri­ous busi­ness of gov­ern­ment takes place.”

The Par­lia­men­tary Broad­cast­ing Com­mit­tee is a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of both the House and Sen­ate that reg­u­lates how leg­isla­tive de­bates are record­ed and shared with the pub­lic.

It serves as the gov­ern­ing body for the Par­lia­ment Chan­nel, Par­lView, and Par­lia­ment Ra­dio, en­forc­ing guide­lines to en­sure that live broad­casts re­main ob­jec­tive, fo­cused ex­clu­sive­ly on the Mem­ber speak­ing, and free of dra­mat­ic re­ac­tion shots.

This com­mit­tee es­tab­lish­es the terms of use for par­lia­men­tary footage, dic­tat­ing how me­dia hous­es can legal­ly clip and utilise of­fi­cial video for fair, ac­cu­rate news re­port­ing with­out cross­ing in­to po­lit­i­cal ad­ver­tis­ing or satire.