Richard Lord

Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal yes­ter­day called on At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie to do like Rad­i­ca in Ken­neth Sal­ick's chut­ney and go (re­sign). Mooni­lal of­fered the ad­vice dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to yes­ter­day's House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives de­bate on a bill to amend the Pres­i­dent's Emol­u­ments Act. The Ex­plana­to­ry Note to the Bill states that the leg­is­la­tion seeks to amend the Act to en­sure that the pen­sion payable to a for­mer Pres­i­dent is re­viewed every six years from the date the hold­er's term ends.

Mooni­lal said the pen­sions of oth­er pub­lic of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing min­is­ters, should al­so be re­viewed. It was at this point that Mooni­lal re­ferred to Wednes­day's pas­sage of a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence in Je­re­mie by the law As­so­ci­a­tion. "And I am call­ing on that min­is­ter, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to do like Rad­i­ca - leave and go in the face of a bold mo­tion of no con­fi­dence in him." This was met by desk-thump­ing on Op­po­si­tion bench­es. Mooni­lal said Je­re­mie was sup­port­ed in the vote by "a cou­ple of se­nior coun­sels who are singing for their sup­per - in fact they're not singing for their sup­per - they're singing for their three meals." With­out iden­ti­fy­ing the at­tor­neys, Mooni­lal said they sup­port­ed Je­re­mie "be­cause they got a brief to pros­e­cute."

Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Colm Im­bert then failed in a move to have Mooni­lal ruled ir­rel­e­vant by the House Speak­er Bar­ry Sinanan. Mooni­lal said the at­tor­neys' ac­tion was in sup­port of "wrong­do­ing and a breach of the Sep­a­ra­tion of Pow­ers." In re­sponse to a sec­ond failed at­tempt by Im­bert to have Mooni­lal ruled ir­rel­e­vant, the Oropouche East MP asked if he in turn, could move that Im­bert was be­ing ir­rel­e­vant. This brought laugh­ter from the Op­po­si­tion bench­es. Lat­er, Im­bert in his con­tri­bu­tion, said there was need for the Op­po­si­tion to see the im­por­tance of hav­ing the amend­ment ap­proved. He said the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent should be re­spect­ed re­gard­less of who was the of­fice hold­er.

Dur­ing Im­bert's con­tri­bu­tion, Op­po­si­tion MP Kelvin Ram­nath said the amend­ment was in­tend­ed to ben­e­fit for­mer pres­i­dent Arthur NR Robin­son. Im­bert said Ca­roni East MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh was work­ing at the Mt Hope Hos­pi­tal while re­ceiv­ing a sep­a­rate salary from tax­pay­ers. Gopeesingh de­nied this, but Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Es­ther Le Gen­dre was heard re­mind­ing him that he at­tend­ed to her at Mt Hope years ago. Im­bert asked Mooni­lal if he was tres­pass­ing at the time. Gopeesingh said he would bring a mo­tion of priv­i­lege to de­ny the claim. And lat­er Ch­agua­nas West MP Jack Warn­er said he was in favour of the leg­is­la­tion but in­sist­ed that when­ev­er he would be el­i­gi­ble for a pen­sion he would like it to be $1. Warn­er said pre­vi­ous­ly that as an MP he would on­ly ac­cept a salary of $1 a month.