DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates’ po­lit­i­cal fu­ture re­mains un­cer­tain af­ter Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les al­lowed Par­lia­ment to be pro­rogued with­out pub­licly re­veal­ing whether she had ac­cept­ed the sen­a­tor’s res­ig­na­tion.

John-Bates re­signed on May 1 af­ter ad­mit­ting re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for edit­ing a wit­ness state­ment that was lat­er sub­mit­ted to a par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee on which she served.

The con­tro­ver­sy emerged af­ter it was re­vealed both John-Bates and Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi made ed­its to the doc­u­ment penned by for­mer health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh be­fore it was pre­sent­ed to the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC). The PAAC was con­duct­ing a pub­lic in­quiry in­to the state’s ac­qui­si­tion of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and the Min­istry of Health’s drug pro­cure­ment prac­tices. Al-Rawi has main­tained that his in­volve­ment stemmed from his role as Deyals­ingh’s at­tor­ney.

The mat­ter was re­ferred to Par­lia­ment’s Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee, where both sen­a­tors re­port­ed­ly ap­peared at least four times, May 8, May 13, May 16 and May 20, as in­ves­ti­ga­tions con­tin­ued be­hind closed doors.

How­ev­er, with Par­lia­ment pro­rogued on May 22, the com­mit­tee’s work ef­fec­tive­ly came to an end with­out any re­port be­ing laid in Par­lia­ment or any of­fi­cial rul­ing be­ing an­nounced.

When con­tact­ed by Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie de­clined com­ment on the sta­tus of the pro­ceed­ings, say­ing “re­ports and pro­ceed­ings of this com­mit­tee are ab­solute­ly con­fi­den­tial and may not be dis­closed.”

Nei­ther John-Bates nor Al-Rawi com­ment­ed pub­licly on the mat­ter. Beck­les al­so did not re­spond yes­ter­day to ques­tions sur­round­ing whether the res­ig­na­tion had been ac­cept­ed or whether John-Bates would re­main a sen­a­tor when Par­lia­ment re­sumes next month.

The si­lence from Beck­les has drawn crit­i­cism from with­in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s sup­port base.

PNM stal­wart Ash­ton Ford yes­ter­day ar­gued that Beck­les should have act­ed de­ci­sive­ly once the res­ig­na­tion was of­fered.

“The minute she of­fered her res­ig­na­tion, the Op­po­si­tion Leader could have cleared that up one time and said, ‘I am not mov­ing her’. And that is the be­lief of all the par­ty mem­bers,” Ford said.

He added that pro­long­ing the un­cer­tain­ty on­ly in­ten­si­fied scruti­ny on John-Bates, whom he de­scribed as a re­morse­ful and young politi­cian.

“The longer Pen­ny stays in de­cid­ing on her sta­tus as a sen­a­tor, the more it, you know, the fo­cus will be on her (John-Bates). These things are not sup­posed to be kept in abeyance.”

Draw­ing com­par­isons with pre­vi­ous po­lit­i­cal con­tro­ver­sies, Ford point­ed to in­stances where par­ty lead­ers moved quick­ly once res­ig­na­tions were sub­mit­ted. He ref­er­enced for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Rus­sell Mar­tineau, who of­fered his res­ig­na­tion to then prime min­is­ter George Cham­bers af­ter the Law As­so­ci­a­tion passed a no-con­fi­dence mo­tion against him over com­ments he made about then Supreme Court judge Jus­tice Lennox Deyals­ingh.

Ac­cord­ing to Ford, Cham­bers pub­licly an­nounced with­in 24 hours that the res­ig­na­tion would not be ac­cept­ed.

He al­so cit­ed the 2020 res­ig­na­tion of for­mer pub­lic util­i­ties min­is­ter Robert Le Hunte, whose res­ig­na­tion was ten­dered to then prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on May 15 and ac­cept­ed on May 16.

Ford ar­gued that those cas­es demon­strat­ed how swift­ly po­lit­i­cal lead­ers can act when con­front­ed with ques­tions over a min­is­ter or sen­a­tor’s po­si­tion.

“These are se­ri­ous is­sues, at the high­est lev­el of the land. And there­fore, quick de­ci­sions must be tak­en, and that was not done. So, we are in a mon­key pants, as the say­ing goes, where we don’t know what will hap­pen and we don’t know how it will func­tion. This is the first time, I be­lieve, in the his­to­ry of this coun­try, that a sit­u­a­tion like this has de­vel­oped.”

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Win­ford James al­so ques­tioned the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s de­ci­sion to de­lay any an­nounce­ment.

“There’s no ad­van­tage that I can see. And now that the Par­lia­ment has been pro­rogued, what is the ad­van­tage?” James asked.

“It’s a mat­ter of wait­ing a lit­tle bit more, be­cause the thing is in her hands, you know? The mat­ter for de­ci­sion-mak­ing is in Pen­ny’s hands.”

Un­der par­lia­men­tary pro­ce­dure, pro­ro­ga­tion wipes the leg­isla­tive agen­da clean. All un­fin­ished busi­ness on the Or­der Pa­per laps­es, and par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tees lose their au­thor­i­ty to con­tin­ue con­duct­ing busi­ness un­less re­con­sti­tut­ed in a new ses­sion.

The first ses­sion of the 13th Par­lia­ment was pro­rogued on May 22. The sec­ond ses­sion of the 13th Par­lia­ment is sched­uled to be­gin on June 5.

It re­mains un­clear whether John-Bates will re­turn to the Sen­ate cham­ber or whether Beck­les will ap­point a re­place­ment.