A dis­clo­sure by Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal dur­ing Fri­day’s Par­lia­ment sit­ting can­not be eas­i­ly over­looked head­ing, as we are, in­to a gen­er­al elec­tion. As he spoke dur­ing de­bate on the Mid-Year Re­view, Mr Mooni­lal point­ed to two lists dat­ed May 15 and June 5 which re­vealed in­equal­i­ties in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of State-spon­sored COVID-19 re­lief ham­pers be­tween Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment op­er­a­tives.

Ac­cord­ing to the MP, 50 ham­pers were sent to the UNC Siparia MP’s of­fice in May but an­oth­er set was al­so sent to the Siparia Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre for a PNM mem­ber. The same, he said, hap­pened in Pointe-a-Pierre, Princes Town and Cu­mu­to-Man­zanil­la – 50 sent to the UNC MP’s of­fice, an­oth­er 50 for PNM mem­bers to dis­trib­ute.

How­ev­er, in the case of San Fer­nan­do West, 100 ham­pers were sent to PNM MP Faris Al-Rawi but none were sent for the UNC to hand out. Mr Mooni­lal claimed the same held for the June 5 list – 50 ham­pers for the UNC Na­pari­ma MP and 50 for the PNM of­fice. He told the House this was the trend in all UNC con­stituen­cies.

How­ev­er, Mr Mooni­lal said in PNM-held con­stituen­cies like Diego Mar­tin, Port-of-Spain North, St Ann’s West and Laven­tille East-Mor­vant, on­ly the PNM of­fices re­ceived ham­pers. None was giv­en to UNC op­er­a­tives to dis­trib­ute.

This un­equal de­liv­ery, if true, sug­gests an un­fair use of state funds for elec­tion­eer­ing, which must be con­demned in the strongest pos­si­ble man­ner.

Fol­low­ing Mr Mooni­lal's claims, one would have ex­pect­ed a firm de­nial or, at least, clar­i­fi­ca­tion from the next PNM MPs to join the de­bate. How­ev­er, nei­ther Stu­art Young nor Colm Im­bert, who were the last two PNM MPs to speak dur­ing the de­bate, touched the top­ic.

How can the Gov­ern­ment jus­ti­fy the dis­tri­b­u­tion of ham­pers paid for by tax­pay­ers in a man­ner that gives its par­ty even the slight­est ad­van­tage in an elec­tion year?

While we agree it’s the Gov­ern­ment’s pre­rog­a­tive to choose its dis­tri­b­u­tion chan­nel, be it through MPs, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment or State bod­ies, it must be a process done on a ba­sis of equal­i­ty.

If this were not done, it meant PNM op­er­a­tives found a chance to present them­selves favourably to vot­ers in UNC-held dis­tricts, with­out UNC op­er­a­tives hav­ing a fair chance to do the same in PNM-held ar­eas.

The Gov­ern­ment ought to ex­plain why this tran­spired, par­tic­u­lar­ly as the Prime Min­is­ter him­self ad­dressed the is­sue dur­ing re­cent de­bate on the Rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Peo­ple (Amend­ment) Bill, 2020. We wish to re­mind the Prime Min­is­ter of his ex­act words in Par­lia­ment on May 8, 2020, dur­ing de­bate: “The cur­rent law does not reg­u­late an in­cum­bent gov­ern­ment’s ac­cess to state re­sources be­fore and dur­ing an elec­tion cam­paign pe­ri­od. This loop­hole al­lows an op­por­tu­ni­ty to sup­ple­ment a can­di­date’s re­sources with State re­sources.”

It's now for the Prime Min­is­ter to say if this was not an ex­ploita­tion of that very same loop­hole.