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Thursday, July 10, 2025

Speaker defends minister in Parliament

by

Renuka Singh
1491 days ago
20210609
Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh, responding to a question during the sitting of Parliament, yesterday.

Minister of Health Terrence Deyalsingh, responding to a question during the sitting of Parliament, yesterday.

OFFICE OF THE PARLIAMENT

Renu­ka Singh

House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette George had to step in twice to pro­tect Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh as he faced heat­ed ques­tions from his Op­po­si­tion col­leagues over the fail­ure of the first-day walk-in vac­ci­na­tion ser­vice.

Pic­tures and videos of long lines and con­gre­gat­ed peo­ple wait­ing for vac­cines dom­i­nat­ed so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day with many sug­gest­ing that it was the Min­istry of Health that was now re­spon­si­ble for hold­ing a su­per spread­er event.

Ear­li­er in the day, at the Min­istry of Health up­date, Deyals­ingh of­fered a mea cul­pa and apol­o­gised for the chaos at many of the na­tions health cen­tres yes­ter­day.

Dur­ing the ques­tions por­tion of the Sen­ate sit­ting yes­ter­day, he was not spared.

Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Oropouche East Dr Roodal Mooni­lal asked Deyals­ingh if he could in­di­cate what process was in place at the Min­istry of Health to test peo­ple over 60 be­fore ad­min­is­ter­ing the Sinopharm vac­cine and was told by An­nisette George that the ques­tion was out of or­der.

But Mooni­lal did not stop there.

“In the con­text of the ut­ter and pos­si­bly fa­tal reck­less­ness of the Gov­ern­ment to­day (yes­ter­day) could the Gov­ern­ment as­sure cit­i­zens that the Sinopharm vac­cine would be avail­able to fa­cil­i­tate your equal­ly ill=ad­vised ABC pro­gramme,” Mooni­lal asked, re­fer­ring to the Min­istry’s new plan to vac­ci­nate peo­ple in al­pha­bet­i­cal sur­name or­der.

But he was shut down again by An­nisette-George.

“That ques­tion is out of or­der,” she said.

MP for Pointe-a-Pierre David Lee sought an up­date on the 1.5 mil­lion dos­es of Chi­na-made Sinopharm vac­cines from Deyals­ingh.

“Just to cor­rect the re­port, at no time did the Gov­ern­ment say we or­dered 1.5 (mil­lion), what we said is that we have the ca­pac­i­ty to pay for 1.5. The ne­go­ti­a­tions for Sinopharm, bi­lat­er­al­ly, start­ed in this coun­try on Sep­tem­ber 1 2020. We signed a Non-Dis­clo­sure Agree­ment (NDA) with Sinopharm on March 16. That pre­vents us from dis­cussing any mat­ters on the is­sue of Sinopharm vac­cines whether it be the patent rights, the for­mu­la­tion, the pric­ing and quan­ti­ties,” he said.

“We are now in the eleventh hour and fifty-fifth minute of con­se­crat­ing this bi­lat­er­al pur­chase and there should be noth­ing that should be said in the pub­lic do­main that is pre­vent­ed from be­ing said with the NDA,” he said.

Deyals­ingh said as soon as the sign off was com­plet­ed, there would be more de­tails with re­gards to ship­ping and ar­rival dates.


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