Brent Zephyrine

Op­po­si­tion MP Joanne Thomas says the Par­lia­men­tary mo­tion by for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning was a very "per­sua­sive ar­gu­ment" and any­one with "a con­science" would have sup­port­ed it. She was speak­ing with re­porters yes­ter­day at the launch of an ex­pand­ed pro­gramme for cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for fi­nan­cial ad­vis­ers at the Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre. The pro­gramme launch, which in­tro­duced the course overview as well as ex­plored is­sues per­ti­nent to its theme-Strength­en­ing the En­vi­ron­ment for In­vestor Con­fi­dence-was the prod­uct of the col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort of the In­sti­tute of Bank­ing and Fi­nance of T&T, the Mu­tu­al Fund As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T and the Se­cu­ri­ties Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T. Thomas said while she un­der­stood "the po­si­tion" tak­en by her three col­leagues (Dr Amery Browne, Fitzger­ald Jef­frey and Pa­tri­cia McIn­tosh) to sup­port Man­ning's re­quest for le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion at his Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee hear­ing, Op­po­si­tion MPs had "a man­date" to ab­stain from vot­ing on the mo­tion. "We had a man­date and I un­der­stand the choice my three col­leagues took, be­cause af­ter hear­ing Mr Man­ning's pre­sen­ta­tion, any­one with a con­science would have been moved to vote in his favour," the MP for St Ann's East said.

In an in­ter­view last week, Browne al­lud­ed to is­sues of "con­science and prin­ci­ple," as well as the per­sua­sive­ness of Man­ning's ar­gu­ment, dur­ing his pre­sen­ta­tion and "wind­ing up" of the mo­tion. The mo­tion, in which Man­ning sought le­gal coun­sel for MPs be­fore the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee, gar­nered no sup­port from the Gov­ern­ment bench­es and all but three of his par­ty col­leagues ab­stained from vot­ing.

Man­ning is cur­rent­ly be­fore the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee for al­le­ga­tions he made in Par­lia­ment last year about Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's pri­vate res­i­dence in Palmiste. Thomas, along with fel­low MP Ali­cia Hospedales, was ab­sent dur­ing the vote. An­oth­er Op­po­si­tion MP, Don­na Cox, was abroad. Thomas said her ab­sence at the vote was not de­lib­er­ate as she did not think the de­bate would wind up" be­fore she re­turned. She, added, how­ev­er, that had she been present, she would have been ob­lig­at­ed to vote with the ma­jor­i­ty cau­cus.

"I think I would have had to go with the man­date of the par­ty but again, as I said, I un­der­stand the po­si­tion my col­leagues took," Thomas said. Pressed by re­porters to com­ment on the pub­lic per­cep­tion that the PNM came across as di­vid­ed be­cause of the split vote, Thomas said noth­ing was fur­ther from the truth.

"I to­tal­ly dis­agree, be­cause if you looked at Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day (Mon­day) where four of us de­bat­ed on the bill, and when you saw the uni­ty that ex­ist­ed at that time, you tell your­self, what is all of this (per­cep­tion of dis­uni­ty) about?" she said. "We are still one fam­i­ly and one set of mem­bers, fo­cused in one di­rec­tion, so I to­tal­ly dis­agree with that." Thomas said the par­ty's lead­er­ship took the de­ci­sion not to "dis­ci­pline" the three PNM MPs, but to in­stead "talk it through and mend this sup­posed split that the me­dia is mak­ing it out to be."