DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Laven­tille West MP Ka­reem Mar­celle is ac­cus­ing Gov­ern­ment of hypocrisy af­ter Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein claimed the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) spent $1 bil­lion on le­gal briefs from the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice dur­ing its nine years in of­fice.

In a fiery maid­en con­tri­bu­tion to the Low­er House yes­ter­day, Mar­celle pushed back by high­light­ing fig­ures paid to at­tor­neys be­tween 2010 and 2015 un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion—sev­er­al of whom are now sit­ting min­is­ters.

He claimed King’s Coun­sel Vin­cent Nel­son re­ceived $27 mil­lion from the AG’s Of­fice, plus $12.1 mil­lion from state agen­cies, to­talling $39.5 mil­lion.

Mar­celle al­so al­leged that De­fence Min­is­ter and To­co/San­gre Grande MP Wayne Sturge re­ceived $2.7 mil­lion in briefs from the AG’s Of­fice, along with $747,000 from oth­er agen­cies. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he not­ed that Jus­tice Min­is­ter and Aranguez/St Joseph MP De­vesh Ma­haraj re­ceived $1.1 mil­lion in briefs from the AG’s Of­fice.

How­ev­er, Mar­celle faced push­back when he at­tempt­ed to raise the le­gal bill of House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh, not from the Speak­er him­self, but from Gov­ern­ment MPs.

As Mar­celle ref­er­enced “learned se­nior Jagdeo Singh,” mur­murs erupt­ed from the Gov­ern­ment bench. He quick­ly re­spond­ed, say­ing he had re­mained silent dur­ing oth­ers’ con­tri­bu­tions and ex­pect­ed the same cour­tesy. But Ca­roni Cen­tral MP David Lee in­ter­vened, cit­ing Stand­ing Or­der 48(1).

“There’s an over­ar­ch­ing prin­ci­ple, Mem­ber for Laven­tille West, I am not go­ing to stop you... But there’s an over­ar­ch­ing prin­ci­ple; you should not bring the Speak­er in­to the de­bate,” Singh ad­vised. “But I am not go­ing to stop you.”

Mar­celle de­fend­ed his de­ci­sion, say­ing prece­dent had been set when Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land was “be­rat­ed, be­ing den­i­grat­ed, dog whis­tled con­cern­ing his em­i­nent silk and the le­gal fees. No­body should be pro­hib­it­ed,” he said.

He went on to com­mend Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les for pre­vi­ous­ly ad­vis­ing MPs to re­main silent dur­ing maid­en con­tri­bu­tions, ad­vice he said was ig­nored dur­ing his own speech.

Telling the House to “buck­le up and pre­pare for the ride,” Mar­celle con­tin­ued, “If one Jagdeo Singh re­ceived $24.5 mil­lion be­tween...” How­ev­er, he was in­ter­rupt­ed by Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, who in­voked Stand­ing Or­der 48(8).

Mooni­lal re­mind­ed the House that the Speak­er is a sit­ting mem­ber of Par­lia­ment.

Stand­ing Or­der 48(8) pro­hibits MPs from rais­ing al­le­ga­tions against the Pres­i­dent, MPs, judges, or ju­di­cial of­fi­cers dur­ing reg­u­lar de­bates, un­less through a for­mal, sub­stan­tive mo­tion.

The Speak­er re­frained from mak­ing a rul­ing, in­stead ad­dress­ing Mar­celle di­rect­ly: “Mem­ber, I’m go­ing to leave that to your dis­cre­tion. Your stand­ing or­der is there. I am go­ing to leave it to your dis­cre­tion be­cause, of course, I have an in­ter­est to serve in it. So, I’m go­ing to leave it en­tire­ly to your dis­cre­tion as to how you ap­proach this.”