Gail Alexan­der

Call­ing: the Clerk of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives!

Amid moves by Fix­in T&T to get the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) to ex­am­ine sev­er­al Op­po­si­tion MPs' hir­ing of rel­a­tives at con­stituen­cy of­fices, Op­po­si­tion MP Su­ruj Ram­bachan yes­ter­day called on the Clerk of the House to clar­i­fy Par­lia­ment's guide­lines on the hir­ing is­sue.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and UNC MPs, MPs Bar­ry Padarath, Dr Bhoe Tewarie and Rush­ton Paray in­di­cat­ed over the week­end, rel­a­tives are work­ing, and had worked at their con­stituen­cy of­fices.

Fix­in T&T yes­ter­day said it will be ask­ing the IC and DPP to­day to in­ves­ti­gate if they breached In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life law by this.

PNM min­is­ter Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald was dis­missed by the Prime Min­is­ter last week af­ter a third set of al­le­ga­tions against her sur­faced, this one in­volv­ing al­leged breach of Par­lia­ment rules con­cern­ing al­leged hir­ing of her com­mon-law spouse and his broth­er at her Port-of-Spain con­stituen­cy of­fice dur­ing 2010-2015.

Per­sad- Bisses­sar last Sat­ur­day at a UNC Con­gress re­port­ed­ly said two rel­a­tives had been em­ployed at her con­stituen­cy of­fice for sev­er­al years and af­ter this term's new guide­lines, was seek­ing ad­vice from the Par­lia­ment on the sit­u­a­tion.

Padarath said he ter­mi­nat­ed the con­stituen­cy of­fice em­ploy­ment of a rel­a­tive in Feb­ru­ary af­ter re­ceiv­ing the Par­lia­ment's con­stituen­cy man­u­al for the 2015-2020 term then. This out­laws hir­ing of var­i­ous types of rel­a­tives.

Padarath made it clear yes­ter­day, it wasn't an "im­me­di­ate" rel­a­tive (as in­cor­rect­ly re­port­ed yes­ter­day) who had worked in his con­stituen­cy of­fice. He said he con­tact­ed the Par­lia­ment and is re­pay­ing salaries paid to the per­son.

Tewarie, re­ply­ing to query if he has a rel­a­tive work­ing at his con­stituen­cy of­fice, had said, "No, but I did."

Paray said he'd in­formed the Par­lia­ment, when he be­came MP and found a dis­tant rel­a­tive (daugh­ter of his grand­fa­ther's sec­ond wife) em­ployed from the tenure of pre­vi­ous MP Win­ston Pe­ters. He said he was told by Par­lia­ment that due to the dis­tance of the re­la­tion­ship, it was al­right. The per­son is a part-time em­ploy­ee .

Fix­in T&T, how­ev­er, claimed the UNC MPs breached the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act as it re­lates to, among oth­ers, Sec­tions 24 (2), and 29 (1). (c bx)

The or­gan­i­sa­tion said it was "trou­bled and ut­ter­ly con­fused" by Per­sad-Bisses­sar's re­sponse. "Sure­ly the Op­po­si­tion Leader un­der­stands the de­f­i­n­i­tion of the word 'rel­a­tive'. As a learned se­nior coun­sel, she must ful­ly ap­pre­ci­ate that ig­no­rance of the law/rules isn't a de­fence."

"Her as well as MP Padarath's sug­ges­tion that the monies paid to said rel­a­tives can sim­ply be re­paid, is in­sult­ing..... "

Fix­in T&T was sup­port­ed by the ILP–which said Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Padarath's ex­pla­na­tions were "weak" and de­mand­ed they re­sign–and the rul­ing PNM which re­peat­ed PNM chair­man Franklin Khan's call for Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­sign.How­ev­er, Ram­bachan, call­ing on the Clerk of the House to shed light on the mat­ter, said facts on the hir­ing is­sue are be­ing dis­tort­ed.

Not­ing the dif­fer­ence be­tween guide­lines for the past 2010-2015 Par­lia­men­tary term and the cur­rent 2015-2020 term, he said, "The ques­tion aris­es–who changed the guide­lines. Were the guide­lines for­mal­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed to MPs or was the man­u­al sim­ply dis­trib­uted to Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans with­out spe­cif­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tions on the changes. "

"Was this the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Clerk of the House? Were these guide­lines sup­posed to be agreed up­on by the House Com­mit­tee? Were these guide­lines changed by the Clerk of the House or the new Speak­er, or were they changed by the Clerk of the House with­out ref­er­ence ei­ther to the for­mer or new Speak­er in the in­ter­reg­num be­tween the time the tenth Par­lia­ment was pro­rogued and the Eleventh Par­lia­ment be­gan? "

He added, "What pow­ers does the Clerk of the House have with re­spect to the reg­u­la­tion of Con­stituen­cy Of­fices and should the Clerk's pow­ers not be cir­cum­scribed by what the House Com­mit­tee and/or the Par­lia­ment agree up­on."

"I wish to call up­on the Clerk of the House to pro­vide clar­i­ty to the is­sue by re­spond­ing as ear­ly as prac­ti­ca­ble to the ad­vice sought by (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) and to pub­lish the names of all per­sons em­ployed at Con­stituen­cy Of­fices since the in­cep­tion of such of­fices.

"I al­so call on her to clar­i­fy who changed the guide­lines from fam­i­ly to rel­a­tives and to state the ra­tio­nale for this change, to state un­equiv­o­cal­ly whether per­sons em­ployed pri­or to the change in the 2015 guide­lines are to be dis­missed."

Ram­bachan said the em­ploy­ees re­ferred to in Per­sad-Bisses­sar's case have been em­ployed for 20 years and 14 years.

"Have these em­ploy­ees been un­fair­ly prej­u­diced in their right to con­tin­u­ous em­ploy­ment by an ar­bi­trary change in the guide­lines af­ter con­tin­u­ous em­ploy­ment up to 20 years and 14 years."