Richard?Lord

Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley led his MPs in a dra­mat­ic walk­out from Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, mo­ments af­ter Op­po­si­tion MP Colm Im­bert de­scribed Gov­ern­ment's mo­tion of no con­fi­dence against Row­ley as hav­ing "no pur­pose, emp­ty, vac­u­ous, ten­u­ous (and) ab­surd."The mo­tion was pre­sent­ed by leader of Gov­ern­ment busi­ness, Hous­ing and Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, who had said Tues­day that dur­ing the de­bate "in­for­ma­tion will come that can cause the Op­po­si­tion to dis­solve it­self on Wednes­day (yes­ter­day)."

But that was not to be, as dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion Im­bert asked leg­is­la­tors: "What is all this 'tralala' about? This mo­tion is friv­o­lous and vex­a­tious. This mo­tion is child­ish. This mo­tion has no ba­sis."He then said he was not about to re­main in the "Par­lia­ment to con­tin­ue this fool­ish de­bate. I am leav­ing now."At the same time, Chief Whip Mar­lene Mc Don­ald said "yeah" with a smile on her face. Oth­er Op­po­si­tion MPs, in­clud­ing Row­ley, who was seat­ed, start­ed to pack their things for the walk­out.

Gov­ern­ment MPs looked sur­prised and shout­ed across the floor: "Shame! Shame!"But Im­bert still had the floor. He said: "You could say what you want. What­ev­er you have to say, say it out­side."Mc Don­ald shout­ed to the Gov­ern­ment MPs as she left: "Good­bye, good­bye."Im­bert then raised his tone: "Mr Speak­er, if they name man, if you name man, come out­side! Don't stay in­side... a bunch of cow­ards. I am gone from here."The shout­ing match did not stop there but was in­audi­ble as both sides shout­ed at the oth­er.

House Speak­er Wade Mark then called on the Min­is­ter of Jus­tice and Le­gal Af­fairs Prakash Ra­mad­har to be­gin his con­tri­bu­tion in the de­bate.The walk­out caused an in­ter­view be­ing con­duct­ed in the cor­ri­dor by Mooni­lal to be tem­porar­i­ly stopped as the Op­po­si­tion ap­proached his lo­ca­tion."This is out­ra­geous... aban­don­ing the Par­lia­ment af­ter peo­ple vot­ed for you to come to the Par­lia­ment to dis­cuss the is­sues," Mooni­lal said in re­sponse to the Op­po­si­tion walk­out.

He said he was call­ing on cit­i­zens "to aban­don the PNM if that was the reck­less con­duct we can ex­pect."With no­body on the Op­po­si­tion bench­es, the de­bate was ad­journed at 6.07 pm to April 8 but the House could not con­tin­ue with oth­er busi­ness be­cause of the walk­out.Just over a year ago, in Feb­ru­ary 2014, the Op­po­si­tion al­so walked out of Par­lia­ment dur­ing the wind up of the de­bate on the Dog Con­trol (Amend­ment) Bill. The walk­out stemmed from an al­le­ga­tion against an­i­mal be­hav­ioural­ist Kris­tel Ram­nath.

At­tack on West

Ear­li­er, Im­bert told leg­is­la­tors the in­tent of the mo­tion was "to dis­cred­it the cred­i­bil­i­ty of David West."That is the in­escapable con­clu­sion," Im­bert said, prompt­ing loud desk-thump­ing on the Op­po­si­tion bench­es.West, who is the di­rec­tor of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty, is a key wit­ness for Row­ley in a pri­vate defama­tion mat­ter against for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan.

West has claimed that the then AG had asked him to with­draw his wit­ness state­ment in the mat­ter re­lat­ing to the un­suc­cess­ful ex­tra­di­tion of busi­ness­men Steve Fer­gu­son and Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh to the US.Im­bert said West's 12-page wit­ness state­ment made no ref­er­ence to Row­ley's con­duct."This wit­ness state­ment is about the for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al. This wit­ness state­ment speaks about things that, if they are true, are aw­ful, Mr Speak­er," Im­bert said.

Im­bert told leg­is­la­tors that West, in his wit­ness state­ment, "speaks to be­ing ap­proached by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and told to re­scind in­struc­tions giv­en to the po­lice to ar­rest Fer­gu­son and Gal­barans­ingh and to have noth­ing more to do with the ex­tra­di­tion of those two gen­tle­men. That is what's in there."He claimed the mo­tion was brought be­cause the Gov­ern­ment did not want the pop­u­la­tion to know the con­tents of West's wit­ness state­ment.

The Gov­ern­ment mo­tion claimed Row­ley had a du­ty to in­form the Prime Min­is­ter be­fore West's ap­point­ment that he was wit­ness in the defama­tion mat­ter brought by Ram­lo­gan.It al­so claimed that Row­ley was bi­ased be­cause he agreed to the PM's nom­i­na­tion of West for the PCA post. The law pro­vides for the Prime Min­is­ter to con­sult with the Op­po­si­tion Leader on the nom­i­na­tion for the PCA post.Im­bert said all Row­ley did was to agree to Per­sad-Bisses­sar's nom­i­na­tion.