Richard Lord

For­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day says Mon­day's sus­pen­sion of San Fer­nan­do East MP Patrick Man­ning was "op­pres­sive and ar­cha­ic."He de­scribed the sus­pen­sion, which took im­me­di­ate ef­fect, as not in keep­ing with the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic tra­di­tions of a de­vel­op­ing na­tion.He said the de­ci­sion would height­en ten­sions across the na­tion.Man­ning was sus­pend­ed for mak­ing al­le­ga­tions about the cost and means of fi­nanc­ing the pri­vate res­i­dence of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar dur­ing a de­bate in Par­lia­ment last year.Fol­low­ing an eight-hour de­bate in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Mon­day, the Gov­ern­ment se­cured pas­sage of the mo­tion by a vote of 25 to 9.Pan­day re­newed his call for the Stand­ing Or­ders, which gov­erns the busi­ness of the House, to be sig­nif­i­cant­ly amend­ed.

He said the 60-year-old rules were "to­tal­ly out of date and in­con­sis­tent with the needs of a de­vel­op­ing coun­try like T&T."Pan­day said the for­mer PNM gov­ern­ment used those same rules "in a most bru­tal fash­ion to si­lence the then Op­po­si­tion." How­ev­er, Pan­day said he did not share the view the cur­rent Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion should do the same.He added: "I do not think that is a good enough rea­son for the present Gov­ern­ment to try to si­lence the present Op­po­si­tion."He said the rules should have been in­ter­pret­ed "in a mod­ern, de­mo­c­ra­t­ic man­ner."Pan­day said in­stead of sus­pend­ing Man­ning for his al­le­ga­tions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar should have pro­vid­ed the in­for­ma­tion in Par­lia­ment.

"All she had to do was state the re­al cost of the house and how she fi­nanced it. That is all and that would have been in keep­ing with the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic tra­di­tions," Pan­day said.He said peo­ple must be al­lowed to speak in Par­lia­ment. He then crit­i­cised House Speak­er Wade Mark, say­ing he was "singing too loud for his sup­per."Pan­day said the sus­pen­sion of Man­ning was like a sen­tence. He said the Gov­ern­ment was send­ing a mes­sage that peo­ple should not feel free to speak in Par­lia­ment.He said the sus­pen­sion was like­ly to end when Par­lia­ment was pro­rogued in about four weeks.Pan­day was sus­pend­ed from Par­lia­ment in March 2008, af­ter fail­ing to heed an or­der from then Speak­er Bar­ry Sinanan to stop us­ing his lap­top com­put­er dur­ing a sit­ting of the House.