Gail Alexan­der

Gov­ern­ment moved yes­ter­day to send Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Sen­a­tor Wade Mark be­fore Par­lia­ment’s Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee for false al­le­ga­tions about Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Board chair­man Patrick Fer­reira.

In the Sen­ate, Gov­ern­ment Leader Clarence Ramb­harat pre­sent­ed a case of this, call­ing for Mark to be re­ferred to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee.

Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo sub­se­quent­ly said she would de­liv­er her de­ci­sion at a lat­er date. But she then en­coun­tered is­sues with oth­er UNC sen­a­tors.

Ramb­harat said the mat­ter con­cerned “cer­tain un­found­ed, base­less and false al­le­ga­tions by Mark last Tues­day.” Mark had raised a mo­tion call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to “ex­plain its de­ci­sion to ap­point a nom­i­nee of the Gov­ern­ment to the NIB board as chair­man which is con­trary to the Na­tion­al In­sur­ance Act.”

Ramb­harat said, “(Mark) made sev­er­al false al­le­ga­tions against the Gov­ern­ment and Mr Patrick Fer­reira, who was nom­i­nat­ed by the Gov­ern­ment to serve as NIB chair­man.”

He said Mark claimed the fol­low­ing:

• Alarm was raised about Fer­reira when he was the Chief Ex­ec­u­tive of CIC In­sur­ance Bro­kers, and al­leged “breach” of the In­sur­ance Act, which even­tu­al­ly “saw him leav­ing the place of em­ploy­ment.”

• Fer­reira “was de­barred lit­er­al­ly” by Cen­tral Bank, as CIC man­ag­ing di­rec­tor.

• It is against the law for any­one in the in­sur­ance busi­ness to give a re­bate on com­mis­sions and “this gen­tle­man re­bat­ed a com­mis­sion on a big home­own­er­ship pol­i­cy plan.” He was “ac­cused of en­gag­ing in un­law­ful ac­tion” by the Bro­kers’ As­so­ci­a­tion and that was re­port­ed to Cen­tral Bank.

• On the ba­sis of this re­port and sub­se­quent en­quiries by Cen­tral Bank, Fer­reira “was re­moved from his po­si­tion” as CIC man­ag­ing di­rec­tor and “as such can­not prac­tice any in­sur­ance ac­tiv­i­ties.” Mark claimed he was “lit­er­al­ly dis­qual­i­fied by Cen­tral Bank and the Bro­kers’ As­so­ci­a­tion from hold­ing any in­sur­ance in­dus­try post.”

• Fer­reira “was un­fit and im­prop­er­ly, il­le­gal­ly and un­law­ful­ly ap­point­ed.”

But Ramb­harat said, “Based on an en­quiry made, the Cen­tral Bank of T&T has ad­vised that no no­tice dis­bar­ring Mr Patrick Fer­reira or dis­qual­i­fy­ing him from hold­ing any po­si­tion in the in­sur­ance in­dus­try has been is­sued. Fur­ther, Cen­tral Bank has ad­vised a de­ter­mi­na­tion of cul­pa­bil­i­ty against Patrick Fer­reira for breach­ing the In­sur­ance Act has not been is­sued.

“The al­le­ga­tions by Sen­a­tor Mark against the Gov­ern­ment and Patrick Fer­reira are there­fore un­found­ed, base­less and false and as such, con­sti­tute a breach of Par­lia­men­tary Priv­i­lege. To ig­nore such con­duct will send the wrong mes­sage to any­one and every­one whose char­ac­ter may be ma­ligned and I dare­say, in the case of Mr Fer­reira, some­one whose per­son­al and com­mer­cial in­ter­ests may be se­vere­ly af­fect­ed by Sen­a­tor Mark’s false al­le­ga­tions.”

Ramb­harat said Mark com­mit­ted con­tempt of the Sen­ate by de­lib­er­ate­ly and will­ful­ly mis­lead­ing the Sen­ate; and gross­ly and reck­less­ly abus­ing the priv­i­lege of free­dom of speech.