?Calls for the resignation of Independent Senator Michael Annisette are gaining momentum. Annisette, who sits on the board of the Urban Development Corporation of T&T (Udecott), is continuously defending the state enterprise, and insists that neither he nor the board has done anything wrong, and so would not resign. Yesterday, Ancel Roget, president general of Oilfield Workers' Trade Union (OWTU), renewed the call for Annisette, a former trade unionist, to resign. Annisette is president of the National Trade Union Centre and the Seamen and Waterfront Workers' Trade Union. "We feel he should resign and set an example if he really represents labour." Roget said Udecott's entire board should resign, and if not, then President George Maxwell Richards should revoke their appointments. "That board is a rogue elephant, and we feel they have abdicated their responsibility," Roget said.
It was reported by a daily newspaper, last week, that Annisette was called in by the President to a meeting on October 6. The meeting was called because of Annisette's interventions regarding Udecott and because of the letter which businessman Emile Elias wrote to the President, asking that Annisette be removed. Opposition Senator Wade Mark also said Annisette should resign on moral grounds. "It's not about personality. In so far as the constitution is concerned, this gentleman ought never to be in Parliament, according to section 42(2)," Mark said. That section says:
"Parliament may provide that, subject to such exceptions and limitations, if any, as may be prescribed, a person shall be disqualified for membership of the Senate by virtue of: "(a) his holding or acting in any office or appointment, either individually or by reference to a class of office or appointment." Mark said Parliament was supposed to bring appropriate regulations with regard to that section. Though that had not been done, he said, "over the years there has been a practice that once you are a director or counsellor on a state board or institution, you could not be a senator."