Gail Alexan­der

Apart from Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, two oth­er Op­po­si­tion UNC MPs had rel­a­tives em­ployed at their re­spec­tive con­stituen­cy of­fices in this cur­rent par­lia­men­tary term, and a third UNC MP still has a "dis­tant" rel­a­tive em­ployed.

They are Princes Town MP Bar­ry Padarath, Ca­roni Cen­tral MP Dr Bhoe Tewarie and Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray.

Last Fri­day ILP leader Rekha Ramjit called on Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­sign since Ramjit al­leged it was "pub­lic knowl­edge" two of Per­sad-Bisses­sar's nieces have been em­ployed at her con­stituen­cy of­fice in Pe­nal Junc­tion for "well over a decade."

Ramjit said par­lia­men­tary rules on con­stituen­cy staff hir­ing made it clear MPs aren't per­mit­ted to hire their rel­a­tives, and this in­cludes nieces and nephews, as con­stituen­cy of­fice staff. Ramjit ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of breach­ing the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life law that deals with con­flict of in­ter­est.

While Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­plained her sit­u­a­tion at UNC's Cou­va Con­gress yes­ter­day, Princes Town MP Padarath said last month when he re­ceived the par­lia­ment's man­u­al on con­stituen­cy of­fice rules, he re­alised he'd have to act since a rel­a­tive of his is em­ployed at his con­stituen­cy of­fice.

Padarath de­clined to spec­i­fy the rel­a­tive, but said it was an im­me­di­ate rel­a­tive. He con­firmed the per­son had been work­ing at the of­fice since he be­came MP. The month­ly salary was $10,000.

Padarath said he was aware of the old rules, but when he got the new (2015-2020) con­stituen­cy of­fice hand­book, he re­alised un­der rules for the cur­rent term, the rel­a­tive couldn't con­tin­ue. "The per­son's em­ploy­ment was ter­mi­nat­ed at the end of Feb­ru­ary.

"I al­so con­tact­ed the Clerk of the House on the mat­ter and in­formed the Par­lia­ment I'll be re­turn­ing the salary which was paid to the per­son each month, so the to­tal I'm re­pay­ing is about $60,000,"

Ma­yaro MP Paray said when he was elect­ed MP last year, sev­er­al peo­ple were al­ready work­ing at the Ma­yaro con­stituen­cy of­fice from the tenure of the pre­vi­ous MP Win­ston Pe­ters. Paray said one em­ploy­ee was a dis­tant rel­a­tive of his–the daugh­ter of his grand­fa­ther's sec­ond wife.

He added, "I knew I had to be care­ful since when we got the man­u­al, it stat­ed rel­a­tives couldn't be hired. I in­formed the Par­lia­ment and was told that be­cause of the dis­tance of the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the em­ploy­ee and my­self, they didn't see it as a prob­lem."

Paray said the per­son was still em­ployed at the con­stituen­cy of­fice, but is now on­ly part-time, work­ing three days a week.

Tewarie, who is over­seas, con­firmed a rel­a­tive did work in his con­stituen­cy of­fice, but is no longer there. He didn't re­ply to fur­ther queries.

Oth­er UNC MPs–Roodal Mooni­lal, Gan­ga Singh, Ra­mona Ram­di­al, David Lee, Vidya Gayadeen-Gopeesingh, Chris­tine Ho­sein, Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, and Su­ruj Ram­bachan–con­firmed they didn't have rel­a­tives work­ing at their con­stituen­cy of­fices. MPs Fuad Khan and Tim Gopeesingh have al­ready said they didn't have rel­a­tives em­ployed. Among UNC MPs who served be­fore, Mooni­lal, Ram­bachan and Ram­di­al said they hadn't had rel­a­tives work­ing at of­fices pre­vi­ous­ly.

HIR­ING RULES

Par­lia­ment's com­mu­ni­ca­tion di­vi­sion yes­ter­day clar­i­fied the con­stituen­cy of­fice hir­ing rules.

The Con­stituen­cy Man­u­al for the im­me­di­ate past 10th Par­lia­ment (2010-2015) stat­ed that MPs have the au­thor­i­ty to em­ploy, pro­mote or ter­mi­nate em­ploy­ees. Un­der Points to Note (Staff) it al­so stat­ed MPs "should not hire mem­bers of their im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly, (de­fined as spouse, chil­dren or par­ents) to work in their con­stituen­cy of­fice."

Rules in the Con­stituen­cy Hand­book for the cur­rent 11th Par­lia­ment (2015-2020) are more spe­cif­ic. Un­der "En­gage­ment of Con­stituen­cy Of­fice Staff" it states "Re­stric­tion on Em­ploy­ment of Rel­a­tives."

The clause states that mem­bers are re­strict­ed from em­ploy­ing rel­a­tives as em­ploy­ees in their con­stituen­cy of­fices. Rel­a­tives in­clude the fol­low­ing in­di­vid­u­als: (a) spous­es; (b) co-habi­tants; (c) chil­dren/step-chil­dren/adopt­ed chil­dren/ grand­chil­dren; (d) par­ents/step-par­ents/grand­par­ents; (e) sib­lings; (f) nephews/nieces; (g) un­cles/aunts; (h) cousins.

KHAN TO KAM­LA: STEP DOWN

?That's PNM chair­man Franklin Khan's call to Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Speak­ing af­ter yes­ter­day's PNM gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing, he said in the same way Per­sad-Bisses­sar called for the fir­ing of for­mer min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald for al­leged­ly hir­ing her com­mon-law spouse and his broth­er at her con­stituen­cy of­fice, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so needs to step down on the same ba­sis.

"What is her po­si­tion on her own chal­lenges? She's al­so ac­cused of breach­ing par­lia­ment rules. She must make a state­ment the same way the Prime Min­is­ter act­ed on Ms Mc­Don­ald," Khan added.

"We un­der­stand she isn't alone, cur­rent and past min­is­ters al­so breached the code. There are back­dat­ed dis­missal let­ters about peo­ple when Par­lia­ment ad­ju­di­cat­ed on her. I ex­pect the same ac­tion the PM en­act­ed with Ms Mc­Don­ald."

Sev­er­al PNM MPs yes­ter­day con­firmed they didn't have rel­a­tives work­ing at con­stituen­cy of­fices in­clud­ing MPs Adri­an Leonce, Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, Colm Im­bert, Max­ie Cuffie, An­tho­ny Gar­cia and Faris Al-Rawi. Cuffie said since most PNM MPs are new, they stud­ied the rules.