Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter-In­ves­tiga­tive

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Three of the four for­mer in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors who were re­placed by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, say they are dis­ap­point­ed by their re­moval.

In fact, they were on­ly in­formed a mere four days be­fore Par­lia­ment re­opened. De­spite this, they all re­main com­mit­ted to the coun­try and are still of­fer­ing to serve.

The for­mer sen­a­tors said they were in­formed of the de­ci­sion that they would be re­placed last Thurs­day.

On Mon­day, the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent in a me­dia re­lease said sen­a­tors Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh, Am­ri­ta De­onar­ine, Char­rise Seep­er­sad and Evans Welch would be re­placed by vet­er­an jour­nal­ist Suni­ty Ma­haraj, Prof Ger­ard A Hutchin­son, Dr Shar­da Patasar and 2018 Ca­lyp­so Monarch Helon Fran­cis.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors are ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent.

Of the four, Welch had the short­est time in the Sen­ate with his 2020 ap­point­ment.

The oth­ers were all ap­point­ed in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors in 2018.

Deyals­ingh, who bat­tles with Weg­n­ers Vas­culi­tus, a dis­or­der that caus­es in­flam­ma­tion of the blood ves­sels, said he can­celled a “buck­et list” event un­der the im­pres­sion he would have been sworn in on Mon­day.

While dis­ap­point­ed by the call four days be­fore Par­lia­ment’s re­open­ing, he said he would avail him­self to bet­ter the coun­try at any time.

“Her Ex­cel­len­cy called and in­formed me last Thurs­day that she re­placed me. I was a bit sur­prised as three weeks ago her staff home-de­liv­ered an in­vi­ta­tion to at­tend the Re­pub­lic Day cel­e­bra­tions. I had to be avail­able for the open­ing of Par­lia­ment on Mon­day and I cut short a va­ca­tion in Flori­da where my wife had planned to take me to see Sting, of the band Po­lice, play­ing at Hard Rock Cafe. I suf­fer from an au­toim­mune dis­or­der where I take an­ti-can­cer med­ica­tion once a week. This was part of my buck­et list,” he said.

Deyals­ingh added that as long as God gave him health and strength, he would of­fer him­self to serve in the Sen­ate.

“I un­der­stand the leg­isla­tive sys­tem bet­ter and can seek to get im­prove­ments, like, have a time­ly leg­isla­tive agen­da, a par­lia­men­tary le­gal de­part­ment which can work on leg­is­la­tion with the in­put of the sen­a­tors be­fore it is pre­sent­ed to the house, al­so try to en­sure bills are not de­bat­ed at in­hu­mane hours, Sec­tion 34 was passed at a mid­night sit­ting,” he said.

He added, “I have missed my pa­tients I have been see­ing in the pub­lic clin­ics since 1988, some came like fam­i­ly to me. I would con­tin­ue to be in­volved in com­mu­ni­ty ser­vice and em­pow­er­ment, as I be­lieve the Gov­ern­ment can­not do every­thing for us and we need to make our com­mu­ni­ties bet­ter.”

De­onar­ine said she was dis­ap­point­ed “for a mo­ment” af­ter she was told she would be re­placed.

“My ap­point­ment as an in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor has end­ed and I be­lieve oth­ers should have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve the coun­try and bring fresh and rel­e­vant ideas to the Par­lia­ment. Much too reg­u­lar­ly we are plagued by peo­ple want­i­ng to hold on­to po­si­tions of pow­er in our so­ci­ety. How­ev­er, I am open to ex­plor­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties to serve in dif­fer­ent ca­pac­i­ties that align with my ex­per­tise and val­ues,” she said.

De­onar­ine al­so be­lieved she had more to con­tribute and as an econ­o­mist she hoped to do that in the realm of eco­nom­ic and pol­i­cy dis­course.

Welch, too, was not hap­py with the de­ci­sion but “thor­ough­ly re­spects the work­ings of our con­sti­tu­tion” and the right of the Pres­i­dent to do as seen fit.

Welch told Guardian Me­dia that he had a lot more to con­tribute to so­ci­ety and be­lieved that the Sen­ate was the ide­al and most ef­fec­tive plat­form to do so.

Asked how he planned on fur­ther­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to so­ci­ety, he said: “I have to think about it and as­sess how I can in the fu­ture. Not quite sure, at this time, how as yet.”

But the for­mer sen­a­tors were quick to of­fer ad­vice to the new­com­ers in Par­lia­ment’s Up­per House. Deyals­ingh’s ad­vice was sim­ple: “Don’t be dis­tract­ed by po­lit­i­cal noise.”

He said with elec­tions due in two years there will be heat­ed ses­sions with the Gov­ern­ment paint­ing a rosy pic­ture and the op­po­si­tion pick­ing at its petals.

“These new sen­a­tors should al­so lis­ten to the voice of the peo­ple to see if any bill pre­sent­ed is meet­ing the needs of the peo­ple. Ad­min­is­tra­tions will come and go, but the words you ut­ter in the up­per house will be for­ev­er im­print­ed in Hansard. This will show your stance, your strength, your im­par­tial­i­ty as an in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor. Our con­sti­tu­tion is para­mount, not the of­fice­hold­ers,” Deyals­ingh said.

And, De­onar­ine called on them not to for­get their com­mit­ment to im­par­tial­i­ty and to pri­ori­tise the in­ter­ests of the coun­try over every­thing else.

She al­so en­cour­aged them to study the laws, analyse the root cause of each pol­i­cy, con­sult with rel­e­vant stake­hold­ers and go be­yond ba­sic re­search to un­der­stand the ef­fec­tive­ness of the pro­posed so­lu­tions.

She said: “Fi­nal­ly, re­mem­ber that pub­lic ser­vice is a priv­i­lege, and your de­ci­sions should al­ways be guid­ed by in­tegri­ty and the best in­ter­ests of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”