Gail Alexan­der

To­day’s open­ing of the Fourth Ses­sion of Par­lia­ment will fea­ture the ap­point­ment of a new In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor re­plac­ing Dr Dhanayshar Ma­habir whose March res­ig­na­tion let­ter from the In­de­pen­dent bench be­came ef­fec­tive last night when the Third Ses­sion end­ed.

Ma­habir, the for­mer In­de­pen­dent Bench co-or­di­na­tor told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day his res­ig­na­tion was ac­cept­ed by Pres­i­dent Paula- Mae Weekes a few days ago.

Af­ter Weekes took of­fice in Feb­ru­ary, Ma­habir, by let­ter in March of­fered his res­ig­na­tion—ef­fec­tive this month’s end of the Third Ses­sion of Par­lia­ment—to al­low Weekes to ex­er­cise her con­sti­tu­tion­al pow­er to choose In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors.

Ma­habir was ap­point­ed by pre­vi­ous Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona. He not­ed that when he was ap­point­ed in Au­gust 2013, Car­mona was vil­i­fied for re­plac­ing four sen­a­tors who were ap­point­ed by Car­mona’s pre­de­ces­sor. Ma­habir said he didn’t want Weekes to face the same sit­u­a­tion.

Ma­habir of­fered his res­ig­na­tion ef­fec­tive from this month when the Third Ses­sion of the five-year term ends. That end­ed at mid­night last night and the Fourth Ses­sion be­gins to­day. He said he did so to com­plete work in­clud­ing with par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tees. He chaired sev­er­al com­mit­tees.

Ma­habir had left it to Weekes to de­cide whether she’d have ac­cept­ed his res­ig­na­tion as of March when he sent it, or from this month. There was no word on ac­cep­tance then and Ma­habir con­tin­ued serv­ing dur­ing the Third Ses­sion up to the end on Thurs­day.

Ma­habir, a well known econ­o­mist, said, he’d re­ceived a gra­cious let­ter from Weekes a few days ago thank­ing him for his ser­vices and ac­knowl­edg­ing his March res­ig­na­tion.

“I will not be re­turn­ing to the Sen­ate (Fri­day) as my res­ig­na­tion be­comes ef­fec­tive at mid­night (Thurs­day),” Ma­habir added.

A re­place­ment for Ma­habir, ap­point­ed by Weekes, will be sworn in at to­day’s launch of the Fourth Ses­sion of the Eleventh Par­lia­ment.

Af­ter Weekes’ ap­point­ment, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor David Small had al­so of­fered his res­ig­na­tion ef­fec­tive this month’s end of the Third Ses­sion. The T&T Guardian learned Small hadn’t been in­formed up to yes­ter­day af­ter­noon if it had been ac­cept­ed.

Sources close to him said what­ev­er the de­ci­sion, Small would abide by this and if there was no word on ac­cep­tance of the res­ig­na­tion he’d be at to­day’s launch of the Fourth Ses­sion. Sev­er­al oth­er In­de­pen­dents de­clined com­ment on whether they’d al­so re­signed ef­fec­tive end of the Third Ses­sion.

There will be no cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing— in­volv­ing a pres­i­den­tial ad­dress—at to­day’s open­ing. The Sen­ate and House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives will gath­er sep­a­rate­ly and get down to re­spec­tive busi­ness at hand.

Short speech­es are ex­pect­ed from lead­ers in ei­ther Cham­ber.

First or­der of par­lia­men­tary work is Gov­ern­ment’s pre­sen­ta­tion of the 2019 bud­get at 1.30 pm next Mon­day.

De­bate on that in the Up­per and Low­er Hous­es and ex­am­i­na­tion by the Par­lia­ment’s Fi­nance com­mit­tee will oc­cu­py three weeks of Oc­to­ber to se­cure pas­sage of the bud­get be­fore the end of that month.

Oth­er Par­lia­ment busi­ness be­ing car­ried over in­to the Fourth Ses­sion in­cludes an­ti-cor­rup­tion and an­ti-crime leg­is­la­tion, the In­come Tax Amend­ment Bill in­volv­ing in­come tax re­port­ing re­quire­ments by the Glob­al Fo­rum block - pro­posed leg­is­la­tion for the T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty and gam­bling/gam­ing/bet­ting bills.

Al­so ex­pect­ed to be fi­nalised in the Fourth Ses­sion are ap­point­ments for the post of deputy po­lice com­mis­sion­er.