Gail Alexan­der

Par­lia­ment's Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee is mov­ing next to com­plete mat­ters con­cern­ing Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) MP Anil Roberts and Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley be­fore the end of the ses­sion next month, ac­cord­ing to PP House leader Roodal Mooni­lal.Mooni­lal in­di­cat­ed that yes­ter­day while ad­dress­ing the Low­er House on the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee's re­port re­gard­ing PNM MP Patrick Man­ning, for­mer prime min­is­ter.Man­ning, who was ab­sent from the House yes­ter­day, was found guilty by the com­mit­tee and sus­pend­ed with im­me­di­ate ef­fect from the House re­gard­ing con­tempt charges.The sus­pen­sion came a week ahead of the May 24 an­niver­sary when the PNM, which Man­ning had led, was de­feat­ed by the PP coali­tion in last year's gen­er­al elec­tion.When the vote was tak­en at 8.20 pm 25 Gov­ern­ment MPs, in­clud­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, vot­ed in favour of Man­ning's sus­pen­sion.Nine Op­po­si­tion MPs, in­clud­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley, vot­ed against. There were no ab­sten­tions.

With Man­ning's seat emp­ty yes­ter­day, House Speak­er Wade Mark an­nounced Man­ning had sought leave from the House from May 16 to 20.The charges against Man­ning stemmed from al­le­ga­tions he made about Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar's house last No­vem­ber 19 and the fund­ing and size of it. She re­fut­ed the al­le­ga­tions im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter sup­ply­ing proof. Man­ning was re­ferred to the com­mit­tee short­ly af­ter.Mooni­lal said Par­lia­ment's nine-mem­ber Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee held ten meet­ings. He in­di­cat­ed Man­ning was of­ten un­co-op­er­a­tive and re­fused to at­tend.He said the com­mit­tee found Man­ning guilty of con­tempt of Par­lia­ment on all three charges against him.

This in­clud­ed de­lib­er­ate­ly mis­lead­ing the House, gross­ly and reck­less­ly abus­ing par­lia­men­tary free­dom of speech and bring­ing the House in­to dis­re­pute and pub­lic odi­um by im­put­ing im­prop­er mo­tives to a mem­ber.Mooni­lal said that apart from Man­ning's is­sue, the com­mit­tee had oth­er mat­ters to deal with con­cern­ing PP's Roberts and PNM's Row­ley.Roberts was re­ferred to the com­mit­tee late last year in con­nec­tion with al­leged state­ments in De­cem­ber about a Nicky Mi­naj con­cert. Row­ley was re­ferred to the com­mit­tee last week fol­low­ing al­leged state­ments about the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al re­cent­ly.

Mooni­lal said the com­mit­tee agreed, con­sis­tent with the or­der in which the mat­ters were re­ferred, to pro­ceed with the mat­ter in­volv­ing Man­ning - which start­ed in No­vem­ber - ahead of Roberts' mat­ter.Mooni­lal added: "It is our in­ten­tion to meet short­ly to deal with the sec­ond and third mat­ters which were on­ly re­ferred to us, and it is our in­ten­tion to re­port on these mat­ters pri­or to the end of the ses­sion."The ses­sion ends around June 17, Par­lia­ment con­firmed.Mooni­lal not­ed the var­i­ous de­vel­op­ments - from court in­ter­ven­tions to mo­tions - along the route of the priv­i­leges is­sue con­cern­ing Man­ning.Mooni­lal said Man­ning's re­cent mo­tion in the Par­lia­ment to seek le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion was a "sig­nal mo­ment" and had nev­er hap­pened be­fore.

Mooni­lal not­ed at length that no oth­er PNM MPs spoke in sup­port of the mo­tion and some PNM MPs' ab­sten­tion on the vote as well as the ab­sence of some PNM MPs when the vote was tak­en.He said Man­ning had of­ten can­celled sched­uled ap­pear­ances be­fore the com­mit­tee."He clear­ly be­lieved he was en­ti­tled to call the shots and di­rect the com­mit­tee's pace," Mooni­lal added.He said Man­ning twice said he had fu­ner­als to at­tend and once call­ing at 5.45 am to can­cel. But he said the com­mit­tee "bent over back­wards" and took pains to work with Man­ning's sched­ule.As the com­mit­tee's re­port drew clos­er, Mooni­lal said Man­ning not­ed he would be un­avail­able last Fri­day and had a pre-arranged med­ical.He said, how­ev­er, Man­ning on­ly ap­plied for leave for this week on Sun­day.

"When PNM MPs (Row­ley) and North East (Colm Im­bert) were play­ing crick­et with us on Sun­day he (Man­ning) was busy writ­ing let­ters," he added.Not­ing that Man­ning had said his arrange­ments in Cu­ba were made in ear­ly April and his trav­el tick­et was firmed up on May 11, Mooni­lal said Man­ning knew he was leav­ing, but said noth­ing un­til the last minute.Not­ing Man­ning's ef­forts to have le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion, Mooni­lal said the com­mit­tee was not a court of law and had felt the best per­son to "tell the sto­ry" of the is­sue at hand was the per­son at the cen­tre of it.Mooni­lal said Man­ning nev­er took the op­por­tu­ni­ty or apol­o­gise or seek to have Per­sad-Bisses­sar to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee for her own re­but­tals on the is­sue. nor did he file any mo­tion on her al­leged con­duct, Mooni­lal said.