A closed door ses­sion of the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee meet­ing fell apart to­day af­ter Oropouche East Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Dr Roodal Mooni­lal re­fused to give his open­ing sub­mis­sions.

Though the at­ten­dees of the pri­vate ses­sion were bound by con­fi­den­tial­i­ty, Guardian Me­dia learned that Mooni­lal chal­lenged the cur­rent com­po­si­tion of the Com­mit­tee.

Mooni­lal was be­fore the Com­mit­tee to an­swer ques­tions on two mat­ters: his be­hav­iour dur­ing a Par­lia­men­tary de­bate last Oc­to­ber when he al­leged­ly told Laven­tille West MP Fitzger­ald Hinds "that's why Snake have lead for you" and his ref­er­ence to a fi­nan­cial tri­an­gle in­volv­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, AV Drilling and a Mi­a­mi-based com­pa­ny.

Mooni­lal said then that Row­ley ben­e­fit­ed from a fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tion con­nect­ed to A&V Drilling in Flori­da, which the PM re­fut­ed.

Last Oc­to­ber Hinds and Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness and Arou­ca-Mal­oney MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is raised the is­sue of priv­i­lege and Speak­er of the House Brigid An­nisette-George agreed to the mo­tion.

Mooni­lal though has since been chal­leng­ing the com­po­si­tion of the com­mit­tee since both Hinds and Robin­son-Reg­is are on the tri­bunal.

Af­ter his le­gal let­ter to the Com­mit­tee in No­vem­ber, both Hinds and Robin­son-Reg­is re­cused them­selves.

With re­gards to the Row­ley mat­ter, in No­vem­ber Mooni­lal's at­tor­neys wrote to the Par­lia­men­tary sec­re­tary Jacqui Samp­son-Meiguel, say­ing that it would be “ill-ad­vised” for the six-mem­ber com­mit­tee to pro­ceed with its in­quiry as Row­ley re­ferred the is­sue to the po­lice and it is now part of an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

More in Tues­day's Guardian.