Dana See­ta­hal

?I was, frankly, amazed by the con­tri­bu­tions of some PNM Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives this past week. For a par­ty that used to boast of nev­er wash­ing its dirty linen in pub­lic, it has cer­tain­ly re­versed that po­si­tion. It was a de­bate on the Val­i­da­tion Bill, in re­spect of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the Con­struc­tion In­dus­try, but the or­di­nary lis­ten­er might have thought the de­bate was about whether Kei­th Row­ley was fired from the Cab­i­net for his com­plaints about Ude­cott, the state-owned com­pa­ny re­spon­si­ble for "fast-track­ing" of gov­ern­ment con­struc­tion projects. On Mon­day, Row­ley said: "Calder Hart, the chair­man of Ude­cott, goes to Calder Hart, the chair­man of the Home Mort­gage Bank, and or­ders $170 mil­lion and hands to the con­trac­tor (who had a con­tract of) $134 mil­lion."

He said the con­tract was award­ed to Hafeez Kara­math Ltd with no com­pe­ti­tion, no ten­der, and that "Hart from Ude­cott bor­rows from Hart from Home Mort­gage Bank $170 mil­lion." Row­ley claimed that the PNM stood for prin­ci­ples of moral­i­ty in pub­lic af­fairs, and these were com­ing un­der at­tack. Fur­ther, the next elec­tion would be the "Ude­cott elec­tion." He re­mind­ed us of the stig­ma from the O'Hal­lo­ran scan­dal that af­fect­ed the PNM's abil­i­ty to cam­paign for elec­tions in the 1980s. He said he was break­ing the PNM mould to make a new shape, and he was do­ing so on be­half of the PNM "peo­ple." Row­ley went fur­ther, claim­ing that he was dis­missed from the Cab­i­net and slan­dered for mis­con­duct. He asked: "Do me a favour, Prime Min­is­ter, in this de­bate. Get up and tell the coun­try what I did in the Cab­i­net."

PNM's re­sponse

The re­sponse be­gan with Im­bert, who point­ed out that Hart on­ly be­came HMB chair­man in late 2008, and the HMB chair­man at the time of the loan in ques­tion was An­dre Mon­teil. Im­bert said Row­ley's al­le­ga­tion was in­ac­cu­rate, since the loan for the project of $134 mil­lion was VAT-ex­clu­sive and in­clud­ed le­gal fees and du­ties, all of which would have in­creased the fig­ure to $170 mil­lion. His state­ments were mild, com­pared to those of Min­is­ter Ab­dul-Hamid, who called Row­ley, among oth­er things, "a self-serv­ing hyp­ocrite" who, on his own ac­count, re­mained silent for five years pri­or to his fir­ing in 2008. Why did he not speak of bid-rig­ging then?

The con­tri­bu­tions of Im­bert and Ab­dul-Hamid were, how­ev­er, just pre­ludes to the main course by the Prime Min­is­ter. He un­der­pinned his con­tri­bu­tion with the state­ment that the at­tacks of Row­ley and the Op­po­si­tion against Ude­cott were re­al­ly aimed at the Prime Min­is­ter and his Gov­ern­ment. He said in re­spect of a pho­to of his for­mer Cab­i­net Min­is­ter, mak­ing his con­tri­bu­tion in Par­lia­ment two days be­fore, "I see hate; I see bit­ter­ness; I see ac­ri­mo­ny; I see an­i­mos­i­ty, and I see a man com­plete­ly out of con­trol." He claimed that he was aware of the ten­den­cy of Row­ley to go out of con­trol since 1987, but it wors­ened from 1996 on­wards, when "some­thing hap­pened." The PM (pre­sum­ably re­spond­ing to Row­ley's in­sin­u­a­tion that he did noth­ing to jus­ti­fy his fir­ing) then clear­ly point­ed the fin­ger at Row­ley as an an­gry man who, if you op­pose him, he be­comes a "rag­ing bull."

He said last year he had enough of it, as he could not al­low Row­ley to re­main in Cab­i­net and ad­verse­ly in­flu­ence the many new min­is­ters. He called Row­ley a bul­ly, who car­ries a huge amount of hate with him and said that be­hav­iour would not be tol­er­at­ed in the Cab­i­net. In the fi­nal analy­sis, the PM es­poused his sup­port for Ude­cott, and in do­ing so as­sert­ed that Ude­cott crit­ics were hop­ing the ev­i­dence of Carl Khan, the ex-hus­band of Calder Hart's wife, would cause the com­pa­ny to fail. Man­ning called this re­liance on the ev­i­dence of "a jilt­ed lover," and fur­ther stat­ed: "Those di­vorce pro­ceed­ings in the court were so ac­ri­mo­nious, that the pro­ceed­ings re­main sealed to this day."

Dis­ser­vice

In my view, the de­bate last week in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives was a dis­ser­vice to the coun­try. Not on­ly did the PM ig­nore or avoid re­spond­ing to rel­e­vant ques­tions on the cost over­runs and im­prop­er pro­cure­ment process­es by Ude­cott, but in gen­er­al the gov­ern­ment treat­ed the coun­try with dis­dain in rel­e­gat­ing con­cerns of cit­i­zens as op­po­si­tion at­tempts to at­tack the gov­ern­ment. The de­bate on the Val­i­da­tion Bill de­volved in­to name-call­ing and bad-mouthing, and the fact that this was al­lowed to hap­pen must sure­ly lie with the Speak­er of the House, who is re­spon­si­ble for reg­u­lat­ing the con­duct of busi­ness in the House.

Stand­ing or­der af­ter stand­ing or­der was breached, and no one was called to task. One such is that the con­duct of an MP is not to be called in ques­tion (ex­cept on a spe­cif­ic mo­tion for that pur­pose), and any mem­ber who does so is out of or­der. Fur­ther, an MP is not to be of­fen­sive or in­sult­ing in his con­tri­bu­tion. Above all, an MP is to be rel­e­vant: what was the bill be­ing de­bat­ed about; not why Row­ley was fired and who bad-mouthed whom?

Fi­nal note

I heard the PM say that in prepar­ing for the gen­er­al elec­tion he dis­cussed Corinthi­ans Chap­ter 13 with all PNM can­di­dates, ex­cept Row­ley, who was ab­sent. I am in­ter­est­ed to know: was it a re­quire­ment that all can­di­dates, be they Hin­dus, Mus­lims or re­li­gion oth­er than Chris­tian­i­ty, sub­scribe to the Bible? If so, sure­ly this must be con­trary to the words of our na­tion­al an­them.