Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les says he’s pre­pared to ap­pear be­fore any Par­lia­ment Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee to which he’s called on the TSTT cy­ber­breach is­sue—and he’s dared any past or present TSTT of­fi­cial to con­tra­dict any­thing he said in his state­ment on the is­sue to Par­lia­ment last Fri­day.

This, af­ter UNC MP Bar­ry Padarath yes­ter­day called for Gon­za­les and fired TSTT CEO Lisa Agard to go be­fore the JSC on State En­ter­pris­es to have a “Come to Je­sus mo­ment” to “bare their souls” about re­cent con­tro­ver­sial state­ments on the TSTT is­sue.

Padarath made the call at yes­ter­day’s UNC me­dia brief­ing.

Padarath spoke af­ter TSTT man­age­ment ap­peared be­fore the JSC on Mon­day and claimed Agard had pro­vid­ed Gon­za­les with the in­ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion he ini­tial­ly gave to Par­lia­ment on the Oc­to­ber 9 cy­ber­at­tack state­ments about the is­sue. Agard sub­se­quent­ly de­nied she pro­vid­ed any mis­lead­ing or in­ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion to Gon­za­les.

In Par­lia­ment last Fri­day, Gon­za­les had giv­en a per­son­al ex­pla­na­tion on a state­ment he made in Par­lia­ment on No­vem­ber 1 on the cy­ber­breach and cus­tomers’ da­ta. Among his ex­pla­na­tion, he’d said that was based on in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed to him by the ex­ec­u­tive and/or the board of TSTT; TSTT’s Oc­to­ber 28 cor­re­spon­dence to its cus­tomers; and TSTT’s Oc­to­ber 30 state­ment on the cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty is­sue.

Gon­za­les main­tained he act­ed on in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed to him and that the in­for­ma­tion in TSTT’s No­vem­ber 3 me­dia re­lease, ti­tled “Up­date on cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty is­sue,” was nev­er in his pos­ses­sion or knowl­edge on No­vem­ber 1 when he ad­dressed Par­lia­ment. He apol­o­gised to the Par­lia­ment and pub­lic.

How­ev­er, Padarath said yes­ter­day, “I call on Ms Agard and the JSC’s chair­man and mem­bers to have Ms Agard ap­pear be­fore the JSC. She must have a ‘Come to Je­sus’ mo­ment to bare her soul and ex­plain ... and the Min­is­ter must al­so be called be­fore the JSC and have a ‘Come to Je­sus’ mo­ment and ex­plain him­self how this en­tire bac­cha­nal oc­curred and he’s now fea­tur­ing at the cen­tre!”

Re­ply­ing to a Guardian Me­dia query on Padarath’s call, Gon­za­les stat­ed, “I gave a com­pre­hen­sive per­son­al ex­pla­na­tion in the Par­lia­ment last Fri­day. I dare any­one (past or cur­rent TSTT of­fi­cial) to con­tra­dict any­thing I said in that per­son­al ex­pla­na­tion.

“Ad­di­tion­al­ly, I am pre­pared to go any­where to speak the truth, the whole truth and noth­ing but the truth be­fore any law­ful tri­bunal or com­mit­tee, and that in­cludes a JSC. Since when does the UNC be­lieve that I would be afraid to par­tic­i­pate in a JSC pro­ceed­ings to en­light­en the coun­try on any mat­ter con­cern­ing my port­fo­lio?”

Gon­za­les added, “The minute I took my oath of of­fice, I have been trans­par­ent and truth­ful to the pop­u­la­tion on mat­ters be­fore me. The minute I feel that I have to lie and to ob­fus­cate on mat­ters con­cern­ing my port­fo­lio, that’s when I’ll hand the Prime Min­is­ter my res­ig­na­tion.

“I am a PNM Min­is­ter of Gov­ern­ment and that means a lot to me and the way I car­ry about my­self in my pub­lic and pri­vate af­fairs, recog­nis­ing that I’m a mem­ber of a PNM Cab­i­net led by a Prime Min­is­ter who will not tol­er­ate cer­tain be­hav­iour in his Cab­i­net. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the UNC doesn’t op­er­ate with those stan­dards.”

He added, “When­ev­er I’m wrong or I make an er­ror in my ut­ter­ances, I will say so and cor­rect the records for the ben­e­fit of the pop­u­la­tion. So I don’t need UNC or Padarath to lec­ture to me on any­thing, since they lack the moral au­thor­i­ty to speak on any is­sue in Trinidad and To­ba­go, es­pe­cial­ly when it comes to speak­ing the truth. I al­so look for­ward to any ill-con­ceived mo­tion of priv­i­lege that the UNC may wish to con­coct. I’ll deal with that too!”

On Mon­day, Agard said she wel­comed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ap­pear be­fore the JSC to present the facts and vin­di­cate her rep­u­ta­tion.

JSC chair­man An­tho­ny Vieira didn’t re­ply to a What­sApped query on if the com­mit­tee will sum­mon Gon­za­les and Agard, or if it would con­sid­er Padarath’s re­quest for them to ap­pear be­fore the JSC.