Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Mem­bers of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) have ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of avoid­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty in the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed bud­get de­bate by hav­ing low­er-rank­ing MPs an­swer ques­tions in­stead of Cab­i­net min­is­ters.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at Bal­isi­er House yes­ter­day, PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les took is­sue with what he de­scribed as the Gov­ern­ment’s at­tempts to “run away” from the de­bate.

He said the is­sues be­gan ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing dur­ing the Low­er House de­bate, not­ing that the on­ly se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials present were Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries Sad­dam Ho­sein and Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Michael Dowlath. He added that most of the Gov­ern­ment’s par­tic­i­pants were “back­benchers” who lacked the ex­pe­ri­ence to ad­e­quate­ly re­spond to ques­tions from the Op­po­si­tion.

Re­fer­ring to the ab­sence of Trinci­ty/Mal­oney MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, who was un­well, Gon­za­les said there were on­ly 12 mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion to con­tend with the Gov­ern­ment’s 28 mem­bers.

Fac­tor­ing in the Cab­i­net min­is­ters who could par­tic­i­pate, Gon­za­les ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of us­ing its nu­mer­i­cal ad­van­tage to out­last the Op­po­si­tion’s re­main­ing MPs as the de­bate wound down. He said this tac­tic al­lowed min­is­ters to avoid an­swer­ing ques­tions di­rect­ly, de­priv­ing the pub­lic of the trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty es­sen­tial in gov­er­nance.

“So up to 2 am yes­ter­day, sev­en PNM MPs re­spond­ing to the gov­ern­ment, five MPs re­main­ing, the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty did not par­tic­i­pate in the de­bate, the Min­is­ter of De­fence, the Min­is­ter of En­er­gy, the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties, the Min­is­ter of Hous­ing ... all of these min­is­ters sat there and did not par­tic­i­pate in the de­bate, and the PNM was on­ly re­spond­ing to back­benchers, peo­ple who do not hold min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios.

“When the mem­ber (of Par­lia­ment) for Clax­ton Bay com­plet­ed his con­tri­bu­tion, we de­cid­ed we had five mem­bers re­main­ing, and clear­ly the strat­e­gy of the UNC in par­tic­i­pat­ing in this bud­get de­bate was to run out all PNM MPs us­ing back­benchers for us to re­spond to.

“Lit­er­al­ly us re­spond­ing to shad­ows and to noth­ing, so when we have no more mem­bers, their se­nior min­is­ters can now come and scan­dalise the stand­ing or­ders and come with all kinds of ‘buss mark’ sto­ries, and we do not have MPs to re­spond to them.”

Gon­za­les al­so said the gov­ern­ment was try­ing to blame the Op­po­si­tion for col­laps­ing the de­bate but con­tend­ed that Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son was present in the Par­lia­ment even as she briefly left to at­tend a pub­lic meet­ing in Bel­mont that same night.

He, in turn, took aim at Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, whom he said was ab­sent from Fri­day’s bud­get de­bate, not­ing that it was dis­re­spect­ful not to be part of such a crit­i­cal par­lia­men­tary process.

“The Prime Min­is­ter had no re­spect for the Op­po­si­tion and could not find her­self in the Par­lia­ment and want to throw blame on the PNM.”

For­mer fi­nance min­is­ter and MP for Diego Mar­tin North-East Colm Im­bert said he was par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­ap­point­ed in the lack of mean­ing­ful ex­change with gov­ern­ment min­is­ters on mat­ters re­lat­ing to pol­i­cy and pro­grammes for the up­com­ing fis­cal year.

“We have floods all over the place, we have pot­holes on every road, and we want to know what the Min­is­ter of Works is do­ing about that. We have wa­ter sup­ply prob­lems. I’m an MP. I have se­vere wa­ter sup­ply prob­lems in my con­stituen­cy. We want to hear what the Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties is do­ing about that. They said noth­ing. So we de­cid­ed to pause and let their front­line min­is­ters tell us what the Gov­ern­ment’s plans and pro­grammes are for 2026; they chose to de­prive us and the pop­u­la­tion of an ac­count of what they plan to do.”

In a re­sponse via so­cial me­dia, pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer for the UNC Kirk Meighoo ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of mis­man­ag­ing par­lia­men­tary busi­ness, not­ing that they re­fused to en­ter a speak­er, as they want­ed to speak at the same time as the UNC’s min­is­ters.

“The Leader of Op­po­si­tion busi­ness should have made arrange­ments with the Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness if they want­ed spe­cial arrange­ments. The old­est par­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go gross­ly mis­man­aged its par­lia­men­tary busi­ness. The PNM failed their con­stituents. They are now try­ing to blame the UNC.”

Prof Ghany: They are dodg­ing the re­al is­sue

When con­tact­ed for com­ment, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Prof Hamid Ghany said he was not con­vinced that the Op­po­si­tion’s ar­gu­ment was valid, as there were no poli­cies or rules dic­tat­ing which mem­bers should be al­lowed to an­swer which ques­tions.

“I think the PNM has hand­ed the UNC a pass on the bud­get be­cause both Stu­art Young and Colm Im­bert went to Bel­mont and they spoke, so it’s not that they weren’t ready to speak; they were ready to speak, so to come with some kind of tech­ni­cal­i­ty like this is, to my mind, dodg­ing the re­al is­sue, and I think that the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion ought to have had greater con­trol of her mem­bers be­cause I don’t know that she would have been part of such a strat­e­gy to do some­thing like this.”

Ghany al­so in­di­cat­ed that this was not the first time that a bud­get de­bate had col­lapsed in this man­ner. He point­ed out that it hap­pened in the 2006-2007 bud­get de­bate when nei­ther a UNC nor a Con­gress of the Peo­ple MP rose to speak as it was their turn. See­ing that no one rose to speak, the PNM Gov­ern­ment wound up the de­bate with no fur­ther speak­ers from the Op­po­si­tion com­ing for­ward.