Gail Alexan­der

“Come out­side and say dat!”

That was the chal­lenge Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and oth­er PNM MPs threw out to the Op­po­si­tion UNC, as both sides clashed loud­ly yes­ter­day on Row­ley and the AV Drilling com­pa­ny in Petrotrin’s “fake oil” scan­dal mat­ter.

The noisy ex­changes were part of yes­ter­day’s last day of the Third Ses­sion of the Par­lia­ment that pro­rogues to­day. The Fourth Ses­sion be­gins to­mor­row.

Yes­ter­day’s clash arose when UNC MP Roodal Mooni­lal ques­tioned Row­ley on whether files and doc­u­ments con­cern­ing the “fake oil” scan­dal in Petrotrin had been se­cured since the re­fin­ery was clos­ing. Row­ley said Petrotrin’s board was man­dat­ed to se­cure all as­sets, in­clud­ing files and doc­u­ments.

Mooni­lal asked Row­ley oth­er queries on the mat­ter, in­clud­ing press­ing Row­ley on whether he had any busi­ness or per­son­al in­ter­est in AV Drilling or the scan­dal.

Row­ley replied, “If you think the Prime Min­is­ter has any busi­ness in­ter­est in there, come out­side and say dat!”

PNM MP Fitzger­ald Hinds al­so shout­ed (and kept on re­peat­ing), “Go out­side and say it!”

UNC MPs shout­ed back, “Call (Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er) Gary (Grif­fith) for pro­tec­tion!”

PNM MPs re­tort­ed, “Leh we go out­side!”

UNC MPs, in­clud­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, con­tin­ued re­ply­ing, with UNC’s Rudy In­dars­ingh de­clar­ing, “We want no bad johnism in here!”

Deputy Speak­er Es­mond Forde warned every­body, “I’ll not tol­er­ate any out­bursts like that again ever in this Cham­ber.”

Forde par­tic­u­lar­ly cau­tioned Per­sad-Bisses­sar, In­dars­ingh and PNM’s Colm Im­bert.

Al­so yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter in Pub­lic Util­i­ties Max­ie Cuffie de­liv­ered a per­son­al ex­pla­na­tion to MPs on his re­cent year-long ab­sence from Par­lia­ment.

Speak­ing in a soft­er, slight­ly lilt­ing voice than he had pre­vi­ous­ly, Cuffie con­firmed he’d suf­fered a stroke on Sep­tem­ber 5 last year and was hos­pi­talised at Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal and lat­er the St Clair Med­ical Cen­tre, since the PoS­GH lacked a drug he need­ed. He added that he went abroad for fur­ther med­ical at­ten­tion.

He thanked PNM col­leagues and Row­ley for their “tremen­dous sup­port” and Per­sad-Bisses­sar for her wel­come back, as well as UNC’s Dr Fuad Khan. Cuffie said he’d met a staunch UNC sup­port­er who said Khan had told her to pray for Cuffie as he was a good man. Cuffie al­so not­ed oth­er UNC state­ments which he said sought to have his time away cut short, though Khan had de­fend­ed his leave.

“I recog­nised it (state­ments) as a ploy to weak­en my po­si­tion, but I was al­ways guid­ed by the Holy Spir­it - that’s why I’m here to­day,” Cuffie said, thank­ing “...God for the un­de­served kind­ness that led to my re­cov­ery.”

“As we move to the Fourth ses­sion of Par­lia­ment, I’ve vowed to serve my con­stituents and the peo­ple of T&T in this and fu­ture ses­sions of Par­lia­ment - by God’s grace.”

Par­lia­ment’s Fourth ses­sion of the five-year term be­gins at 1.30 pm to­mor­row. Both the Up­per and Low­er Hous­es of Par­lia­ment will meet si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly. It will not be a cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing.