KE­JAN HAYNES &

DEREK ACHONG

Sev­er­al new faces will grace the Par­lia­ment Cham­ber in the 13th ses­sion, in­clud­ing a Speak­er of the House with no par­lia­men­tary ex­pe­ri­ence.

Dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Cer­e­mo­ni­al Open­ing of the Par­lia­ment, the Low­er House vot­ed, through a mo­tion brought by Cou­va South MP Bar­ry Padarath and sec­ond­ed by Fyz­abad MP Dave Tan­coo, for at­tor­ney Jagdeo Singh to be Speak­er of the House. The Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) did not put for­ward any oth­er pro­pos­als. 

Singh promised to up­hold the dig­ni­ty of Par­lia­ment and serve the coun­try with in­tegri­ty as he ad­dressed the House.

Call­ing Par­lia­ment “one of the cor­ner­stones of this much ven­er­at­ed and re­spect­ed democ­ra­cy,” Singh po­si­tioned the cham­ber as cen­tral to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s iden­ti­ty, which he said is “much ad­mired through­out the world for our healthy democ­ra­cy.”

Singh urged mem­bers of the House to rise to the oc­ca­sion, de­clar­ing, “To­geth­er, we can re­as­sure the beloved peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go that the peo­ple’s busi­ness will be well at­tend­ed to and in a man­ner which is be­fit­ting of the dig­ni­ty and re­spect which this mem­ber­ship of this House de­mands.”

Even as he was an­nounced as Speak­er, how­ev­er, so­cial me­dia was abuzz with a resur­faced ar­ti­cle on Singh’s le­gal trou­bles in the past.

In 1999, Jagdeo Singh, who was 33 at the time, was slapped with two cor­rup­tion charges stem­ming from a com­plaint made by Sher­ry-Ann Bas­deo, the com­mon-law wife of his client, Rudolph John. 

Bas­deo claimed Singh told her the mon­ey was need­ed to se­cure bail for her com­mon-law hus­band, who had been charged with drug traf­fick­ing. Singh de­nied the al­le­ga­tion and said the pay­ment was sim­ply his le­gal fee.

Po­lice staged a sting op­er­a­tion in Curepe, where Singh was ar­rest­ed col­lect­ing the cash. In 2001, a ju­ry con­vict­ed him and he was sen­tenced to sev­en years in prison.

In 2005, the UK Privy Coun­cil quashed the con­vic­tion. Lord Bing­ham ruled that the tri­al judge failed to tell ju­rors to weigh Singh’s good char­ac­ter, de­scrib­ing him as a man with “no record­ed blem­ish on his pro­fes­sion­al rep­u­ta­tion.” The court al­so found the un­der­cov­er of­fi­cer’s ev­i­dence ac­tu­al­ly sup­port­ed Singh, not the pros­e­cu­tion. No re­tri­al was or­dered.

Mean­while, in the up­per house yes­ter­day, Wade Mark, a sen­a­tor with decades of ex­pe­ri­ence, was an­nounced as the pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate.

Mark was pre­vi­ous­ly the speak­er of the house dur­ing Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s first stint as prime min­is­ter from 2010-2015, be­fore re­turn­ing to the Sen­ate as an op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor for two terms. Mark of­ten squared off with Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo when she was pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate. Now, as Sen­ate Pres­i­dent, Mark will act as pres­i­dent of T&T when Kan­ga­loo is out of the coun­try, which Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands could oc­cur in a few weeks’ time. 

“We must nev­er for­get that a strong Par­lia­ment means we are go­ing to have a very rich democ­ra­cy,” Mark said dur­ing his open­ing re­marks to the Sen­ate. 

“I would like, there­fore, to urge all mem­bers, ex­pe­ri­enced and new alike, to keep close the oath, var­i­ous oaths, that you all have tak­en to­day. You have cho­sen to ded­i­cate your lives to some­thing big­ger than your­selves and put your coun­try first. For that, I com­mend you,” Mark said.

Deputy Speak­er, Princes Town MP Dr Aiy­na Ali, and, Sen­ate Vice Pres­i­dent Kenya Charles are al­so new­com­ers to Par­lia­ment.

Speak­ing out­side the Par­lia­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar gave an ex­pla­na­tion for choos­ing Charles.

“Kenya is a very strong per­son I think she will do a great job up there. She has al­so been the chair of the women’s arm of my par­ty and she’s been with us for a long time so I know her well and she will do a great job in the Sen­ate,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. 

4 lawyers among 9 In­de­pen­dents

Econ­o­mist, lec­tur­er at The UWI and a fa­mil­iar pub­lic com­men­ta­tor, Dr Mar­lene Attzs joined the Sen­ate as an In­de­pen­dent yes­ter­day. 

Among the nine In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors are four at­tor­neys: An­tho­ny Vieira, SC, (who re­turns from the last ses­sion); Michael de la Bastide, SC; Can­dice Jones-Sim­mons, and To­ba­go-born Ali­cia Lalite-Et­ti­enne, who be­comes the first vi­su­al­ly im­paired per­son to serve in the cham­ber.

Fran­cis Lewis is the sec­ond econ­o­mist, while en­gi­neer De­oroop Teemal re­turns with over four decades’ ex­pe­ri­ence in in­fra­struc­ture and wa­ter man­age­ment. Oph­thal­mol­o­gist Dr De­sirée Mur­ray is a se­nior lec­tur­er and glob­al ad­vo­cate for pre­vent­ing blind­ness.

Court­ney Mc­Nish, a sea­soned hu­man re­source and in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions ex­pert, pre­vi­ous­ly served as a mem­ber of the Bliss Seep­er­sad-led Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC), which re­signed en masse in 2021 amid con­tro­ver­sy over the han­dling of Gary Grif­fith’s ap­point­ment and sus­pen­sion as act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.

PNM picks 2 fresh faces

Mean­while, the veil was al­so lift­ed on the PNM’s Sen­ate choic­es.

Faris Al-Rawi and Fos­ter Cum­mings were se­lect­ed de­spite los­ing their seats in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion. They joined Dr Amery Browne, who re­turns to the Sen­ate with short-lived Fi­nance Min­is­ter Vish­nu Dhan­paul. New names in the Op­po­si­tion Sen­ate bench are at­tor­ney Janelle John-Bates and Melanie Roberts-Radg­man, of To­ba­go.