Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress MP Bar­ry Padarath has again raised ques­tions about whether Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion Chief Elec­tion Of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis-Scope is a rel­a­tive of a Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment MP.

Padarath raised the is­sue dur­ing Mon­day's Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee's ex­am­i­na­tion of ex­pen­di­ture in the 2019/2020 Bud­get in Par­lia­ment.

Ad­dress­ing the com­mit­tee dur­ing the ses­sion, Padarath, the Princes Town MP, asked, "Un­der per­son­al ex­pen­di­ture, could the ho­n­ourable min­is­ter in­di­cate whether or not this re­flects the salary of the chief elec­tions of­fi­cer and how is this per­son se­lect­ed for this po­si­tion and whether or not the in­cum­bent is a rel­a­tive of a mem­ber of the PNM sit­ting in this house to­day."

House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George rose to in­di­cate to Padarath that she would not al­low the ques­tion.

"I al­lowed you to make that state­ment, I am not go­ing to al­low that ques­tion," said the House Speak­er, even as Min­is­ter of Fi­nance Colm Im­bert re­spond­ed that it was "an il­le­git­i­mate ques­tion."

How­ev­er, Padarath re­tort­ed loud­ly that he felt the ques­tion was valid giv­en the EBC was be­ing ad­dressed by the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee.

This prompt­ed An­nisette-George to in­di­cate to him that he could re­mon­strate out­side if he wished but that she would not al­low him to con­tin­ue with his line of ques­tion­ing.

The UNC had raised the is­sue of Nar­cis-Scope's tenure last year, with Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Wade Mark call­ing for her re­moval in the Sen­ate in May 2018 to pre­serve the in­de­pen­dence of the elec­tions gov­ern­ing body.

Mark al­leged then that Nar­cis-Scope was the first cousin of Max­ie Cuffie, the La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro MP. How­ev­er, the EBC sub­se­quent­ly de­nied this al­le­ga­tion.

Nar­cis-Scope's ap­point­ment to the po­si­tion in 2017 has been mired in con­tro­ver­sy and was chal­lenged by EBC deputy chief elec­tions of­fi­cer Lena Sa­hadeo when it was made. Sa­hadeo had not­ed then that with over 24 years' ex­pe­ri­ence, she be­lieved she was more qual­i­fied and ex­pe­ri­enced for the post and Nar­cis was her ju­nior.

The UNC al­so ear­li­er raised their con­cerns about the EBC's reg­is­tra­tion process.

“That ver­i­fi­ca­tion pro­gramme that we are en­trust­ing to the EBC, would these of­fi­cers who are on over­time be a part of that process of ver­i­fi­ca­tion?” asked Dr Tim Gopeesingh, who, up­on re­ceiv­ing a re­sponse of yes from Im­bert, fol­lowed with an­oth­er ques­tion.

“Bear­ing in mind the elec­tion is on De­cem­ber 2, when is it go­ing to be com­plet­ed?”

Im­bert re­spond­ed, “You are very well aware that the Pres­i­dent is­sues the writ of elec­tions in ac­cor­dance with the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple Act that there is a pe­ri­od of elec­toral reg­is­tra­tion which can on­ly take place af­ter the writ is is­sue. The writ was on­ly ad­dressed with­in the last day or two and there­fore elec­toral reg­is­tra­tion will be­gin short­ly. It must be com­plet­ed statu­to­ri­ly by a pre­scribed pe­ri­od be­fore polling day.”

Im­bert lat­er dis­missed oth­er ques­tions from Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and Fazal Karim over when the EBC would re­spond to the UNC’s query, as he said it was not rel­e­vant to the busi­ness of the com­mit­tee.

“That is not a mat­ter for the Fi­nance Com­mit­tee. The EBC is an in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tion...don’t try that,” Im­bert said.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so said the UNC will be seek­ing a meet­ing with EBC of­fi­cials to dis­cuss what she called in­con­sis­ten­cies and anom­alies in sev­er­al con­stituen­cies.

In one of two state­ments is­sued yes­ter­day, she said af­ter con­duct­ing “a house to house ex­am­i­na­tion of the list of reg­is­tered vot­ers in each con­stituen­cy to phys­i­cal­ly meet each vot­er,” the UNC found, “1,684 in­con­sis­ten­cies and anom­alies with­in the St Joseph, Tu­na­puna, Moru­ga/Table­land and La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro con­stituen­cies.”

The ar­eas list­ed have been con­sid­ered mar­gin­al seats.

The UNC said it sub­mit­ted com­pre­hen­sive re­ports high­light­ing the dis­crep­an­cies to the EBC on Oc­to­ber 4, yet up to yes­ter­day, the par­ty had not re­ceived any re­sponse from the Com­mis­sion. As a re­sult, the UNC is re­quest­ing “a meet­ing with the EBC to deal with this and oth­er is­sues.”

Last Fri­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced as De­cem­ber 2 as the date for the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions.