Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Deputy House Speak­er Es­mond Forde yes­ter­day sum­moned the Mar­shal of the Par­lia­ment to re­move St Au­gus­tine MP Khadi­jah Ameen from the cham­ber, af­ter he in­struct­ed her to leave and she ques­tioned his or­der.

The in­ci­dent oc­curred af­ter Cou­va South MP Rudy In­dars­ingh had been ques­tion­ing Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les on TTPost ne­go­ti­a­tions with the TT Postal Work­ers’ Union for the pe­ri­od 2014-2017, for Bar­gain­ing Units 1, 2 and 3.

Gon­za­les said the com­mence­ment of ne­go­ti­a­tions was de­layed pend­ing the com­ple­tion of a job eval­u­a­tion for work­ers with­in these bar­gain­ing units, as well as non-bar­gain­ing po­si­tions.

He added, “The ex­er­cise was be­ing fa­cil­i­tat­ed by a joint TTPost man­age­ment/union com­mit­tee, which was es­tab­lished to guide the work to al­low for trans­paren­cy, ob­jec­tiv­i­ty and fair­ness. There has been a de­lay in the fi­nal­i­sa­tion of the re­port on the job eval­u­a­tion ex­er­cise as a re­sult of se­ri­ous anom­alies iden­ti­fied by the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer re­lat­ing to grad­ing, su­per­vi­sor/sub­or­di­nate, in­ap­pro­pri­ate place­ment of po­si­tions, and in­ap­pro­pri­ate com­para­tors for the mar­ket sur­vey.”

Gon­za­les added, “Giv­en the de­lay in fi­nal­is­ing the job eval­u­a­tion re­port, a de­ci­sion has been tak­en re­cent­ly to pro­ceed with the ne­go­ti­a­tions. And rec­om­men­da­tions have been sub­mit­ted to Cab­i­net’s Hu­man Re­source Ad­vi­so­ry Sub-com­mit­tee in keep­ing with the es­tab­lished pro­ce­dures. In this re­gard, ne­go­ti­a­tions are ex­pect­ed to com­mence this year 2024.”

In­dars­ingh, who cit­ed “the min­is­ter’s track record” on in­for­ma­tion from State en­ter­pris­es, asked if the job eval­u­a­tion sur­vey hadn’t been com­plet­ed. Gon­za­les said he had a track record that can stand tall on pub­lic ser­vice and “the MP has no record of pub­lic ser­vice in T&T and should be ashamed to talk about ‘track record’ in this Par­lia­ment”.

Op­po­si­tion MPs, in­clud­ing Ameen, protest­ed loud­ly. Forde, cau­tion­ing all.

Gon­za­les re­it­er­at­ed his re­sponse. In­dars­ingh asked if he was aware the job eval­u­a­tion be­tween TTPost and TTP­WU was signed off in 2010. Gon­za­les said he couldn’t re­spond due to In­dars­ingh’s lack of track record.

Ameen protest­ed based on two stand­ing or­ders. Forde said he’d as­cer­tain, based on the com­ments made, if stand­ing or­ders were breached. He apol­o­gised but said he had to “stand it down”. When there was fur­ther protest from Ameen, Ford in­struct­ed her to “take five min­utes” out­side.

To more Op­po­si­tion protests and Gov­ern­ment re­torts, Forde shout­ed, “Mem­bers please!”

He said he’d ruled to the Laven­tille West MP, Oropouche East MP and Fi­nance Min­is­ter. Forde twice in­struct­ed Ameen to va­cate the cham­ber for five min­utes.

She then asked, “Un­der what stand­ing or­der Mr Deputy Speak­er?”

Gov­ern­ment MPs roared protests. Forde again in­struct­ed her to leave, to which the Gov­ern­ment bench desk-thumped ap­proval. Forde or­dered the mar­shal to as­sist Ameen in leav­ing. The mar­shal and of­fi­cers ap­proached the Op­po­si­tion bench­es to get Ameen.

Ameen said, “Mr Deputy Speak­er, I’m not be­ing dis­re­spect­ful to you in any way, I’m sim­ply ask­ing to be guid­ed by you un­der what Stand­ing Or­der you’re ask­ing me to leave the cham­ber?”

Forde said he’d ruled and re­peat­ed his or­der. When she didn’t leave, Forde told Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip David Lee to en­sure she left the cham­ber. Op­po­si­tion MPs queried what stand­ing or­der was be­ing used. Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, cit­ed 55-3.

MPs Bar­ry Padarath and Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, mean­while, turned their chairs, “sand­wich­ing” Ameen, block­ing of­fi­cers from reach­ing her. Some Op­po­si­tion MPs com­plained about be­ing pushed out of the way.

Ameen even­tu­al­ly said she was leav­ing but still await­ed Forde’s guid­ance on what stand­ing or­der was used. The Gov­ern­ment bench protest­ed ob­struc­tion of pro­ceed­ings. Forde asked Mooni­lal to shift his chair so Ameen could leave and she de­part­ed as protests con­tin­ued.

Forde then alert­ed MPs to the stand­ing or­ders in the House.