Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les says a de­ci­sion on the fu­ture of Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates will be made “soon,” near­ly two weeks af­ter the em­bat­tled sen­a­tor ten­dered her res­ig­na­tion.

John-Bates told the Sen­ate on May 1 that she had sub­mit­ted her res­ig­na­tion to her po­lit­i­cal leader. How­ev­er, 13 days lat­er, the mat­ter re­mains un­re­solved, with Beck­les yet to for­mal­ly ac­cept it.

Guardian Me­dia has re­peat­ed­ly asked the Op­po­si­tion Leader for an up­date, with lit­tle clar­i­ty pro­vid­ed on the time­line for a de­ci­sion.

On May 5, Beck­les said: “I will let you know AS­AP.”

Yes­ter­day, she added: “I am out of the coun­try but will be ad­dress­ing the mat­ter soon,” with­out spec­i­fy­ing her lo­ca­tion.

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is ex­pect­ed to hold a me­dia brief­ing at 10 am to­day. How­ev­er, Guardian Me­dia has been re­li­ably in­formed that no an­nounce­ment on the mat­ter is ex­pect­ed at that fo­rum.

John-Bates of­fered her res­ig­na­tion fol­low­ing al­le­ga­tions of im­prop­er con­duct re­lat­ed to her role on the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC).

The con­tro­ver­sy stems from claims that she as­sist­ed for­mer Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh in re­view­ing and edit­ing his wit­ness state­ment ahead of his ap­pear­ance be­fore the com­mit­tee, lead­ing to her re­moval from par­lia­men­tary over­sight re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

The Sen­ate lat­er adopt­ed a mo­tion for her re­moval from the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) on Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty af­ter a spe­cial re­port con­clud­ed that her con­tin­ued pres­ence was a “hin­drance” to its work.

The Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness in the Sen­ate ar­gued that the con­tro­ver­sy had un­der­mined con­fi­dence in her abil­i­ty to main­tain con­fi­den­tial­i­ty in sen­si­tive na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty de­lib­er­a­tions.

John-Bates, along with PNM Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi, has been re­ferred to the Sen­ate’s Com­mit­tee of Priv­i­leges, with the mat­ter still pend­ing.

The on­ly pub­lic com­ment from Beck­les yes­ter­day came via a Face­book post con­grat­u­lat­ing Ba­hamas Prime Min­is­ter Philip Davis and his Pro­gres­sive Lib­er­al Par­ty on their elec­toral vic­to­ry.

She wrote: “The peo­ple of The Ba­hamas have once again demon­strat­ed their stead­fast com­mit­ment to democ­ra­cy and good gov­er­nance. As fel­low Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States with­in Cari­com, our coun­tries re­main unit­ed in pur­pose as we work to­geth­er to strength­en eco­nom­ic re­silience, so­cial progress, and re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty.”