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Thursday, July 17, 2025

Laventille West MP slams Govt ‘hypocrisy’ over legal briefs

... Points to $24.5M paid to current House Speaker

by

Dareece Polo
23 days ago
20250624
Laventille West MP Kareem Marcelle delivers his maiden speech during yesterday’s sitting of Parliament.

Laventille West MP Kareem Marcelle delivers his maiden speech during yesterday’s sitting of Parliament.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

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.”


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