UNC MP Dr Rai Rag­bir, who is still await­ing word from the par­ty on when his dis­ci­pli­nary hear­ing will be, can­not fur­ther de­lay a fam­i­ly trip, and he will be go­ing over­seas next week.

“Fam­i­ly comes first, and my fam­i­ly, like me, has been pa­tient­ly await­ing word on when my sit­u­a­tion will be dealt with, but I can’t put off my com­mit­ment to them any fur­ther,” Rag­bir said on Mon­day.

He was re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia queries ear­li­er in the day on whether he had re­ceived word yet on when his hear­ing would be. Rag­bir was part of UNC MP Rush­ton Paray’s Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate for the UNC’s June 15 ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions. He un­suc­cess­ful­ly con­test­ed the post of deputy leader.

How­ev­er, Rag­bir sub­se­quent­ly broke ranks and vot­ed with the PNM Gov­ern­ment on the whistle­blow­er bill, which the UNC did not sup­port. Ra­bir’s ac­tion was slammed by UNC of­fi­cials, and he was cut off from UNC What­sApp chat groups. UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar lat­er said Rag­bir must be af­ford­ed due process.

This would be done fair­ly ac­cord­ing to UNC’s con­sti­tu­tion, where he would re­ceive an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be heard and ac­count for his ac­tions. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Rag­bir would be al­lowed le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. It was un­der­stood that UNC’s dis­ci­pli­nary team would have dealt with his is­sue. A mem­ber of that team—Lloyd Williams—died in Ju­ly, but UNC sources said the team could have still op­er­at­ed.

The team com­pris­es mem­bers ap­point­ed by UNC’s Na­tion­al Con­gress and ex­ec­u­tive, UNC of­fi­cials had pro­ject­ed the mat­ter would have been done be­fore Par­lia­ment re­sumes in Sep­tem­ber.

But yes­ter­day UNC ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cials had no word on when ex­act­ly it will be. Rag­bir, how­ev­er, said he—and his fam­i­ly—were left in lim­bo and un­able to do any­thing prop­er­ly for the Au­gust va­ca­tion since he was await­ing the UNC mat­ter to pro­ceed.

“Par­lia­ment usu­al­ly re­sumes in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber, and I’ve heard noth­ing from my po­lit­i­cal leader or any of­fi­cial on my mat­ter and when the dis­ci­pli­nary team might meet. So I’m on ‘hold’ and my life is too. I can’t do any­thing in the event the par­ty calls me,” Rag­bir added.

“But my fam­i­ly’s al­so suf­fer­ing. My son just took his CSEC ex­am, and I’d want­ed to take him on a va­ca­tion over­seas, but we’re all stuck in T&T. How­ev­er fam­i­ly comes first, and we will take our trip next week (to the US) and be back be­fore In­de­pen­dence on Au­gust 31.

“The UNC’s ex­ec­u­tive was sworn in a long time ago, and I’m sure they would have had meet­ings by now, so there’s no ex­cuse why there’s no word, es­pe­cial­ly since the po­lit­i­cal leader spoke on the mat­ter at the swear­ing-in of the ex­ec­u­tive and said cer­tain sig­nif­i­cant things,” Rag­bir added.

“How­ev­er, life and work go on. Even though the UNC side­lined my­self, my of­fice staff, and the par­ty’s Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la ex­ec­u­tive from their re­cent bud­get con­sul­ta­tions, I’m the MP still, and I con­tin­ue my work.

“On Mon­day I opened an MP’s sub of­fice at Biche, and I’ve giv­en my com­mit­ment to cre­ate a home­work cen­tre al­so, and on Tues­day (yes­ter­day) I’m meet­ing with Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les on a project to im­prove wa­ter sup­ply from my con­stituen­cy to To­co.”