Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Claims of racism dur­ing yes­ter­day’s pro­ceed­ings of the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee forced House Chair­man Jagdeo Singh to sus­pend the sit­ting, as tem­pers flared be­tween gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion mem­bers.

The con­fronta­tion arose dur­ing de­lib­er­a­tions on the Min­istry of Hous­ing’s bud­get al­lo­ca­tions.

The up­roar be­gan af­ter mem­bers of the op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of mar­gin­al­is­ing Port-of-Spain, al­leg­ing that al­lo­ca­tions pre­vi­ous­ly ear­marked for East Port-of-Spain had been re­moved.

Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land ar­gued that the con­stituen­cy had been de­lib­er­ate­ly side­lined.

“What do the peo­ple of East Port-of-Spain do now when they are in need of mi­nor in­fra­struc­tur­al works? You closed down CEPEP, who used to do that, and you closed down URP—what are we to do in Port-of-Spain? You have mar­gin­alised us,” Scot­land said.

Op­po­si­tion MPs pressed the is­sue, de­mand­ing an ex­pla­na­tion for what they de­scribed as the Gov­ern­ment’s “with­draw­al of sup­port” for the cap­i­tal city’s re­de­vel­op­ment.

How­ev­er, Hous­ing Min­is­ter David Lee re­ject­ed the claim, main­tain­ing that the East Port-of-Spain project re­mained ac­tive.

“We want to say to you that a board will be put in place short­ly, and the whole re-eval­u­a­tion will be done on that line item. If there is a need for fund­ing, that new board, through the Min­istry of Hous­ing, will ap­proach the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance,” Lee said.

As ex­changes grew in­creas­ing­ly heat­ed, cross-talk erupt­ed across the cham­ber. Chair­man Singh re­peat­ed­ly called for or­der but ul­ti­mate­ly ruled that the sit­ting had “de­gen­er­at­ed in­to un­bri­dled un­ruli­ness.”

Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath then ac­cused op­po­si­tion MPs of “hooli­gan­ism,” prompt­ing a strong re­sponse from St Anns East MP Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, who brand­ed the com­ment “racist.”

“Don’t call peo­ple hooli­gans—that is a racist com­ment,” Gads­by-Dol­ly re­tort­ed.

Padarath de­fend­ed his re­mark, in­sist­ing that he was crit­i­cis­ing be­hav­iour, not eth­nic­i­ty.

The ex­change trig­gered fur­ther shout­ing from both sides, forc­ing Singh to in­ter­vene once again.

Singh sub­se­quent­ly in­struct­ed op­po­si­tion mem­bers to with­draw their al­le­ga­tions of racism against the Gov­ern­ment.

“With­draw the ac­cu­sa­tion now—with­draw it,” Singh or­dered.

Arou­ca/Lopinot MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les said the Op­po­si­tion would not tol­er­ate such lan­guage, ac­cus­ing the Chair of fail­ing to rep­ri­mand Padarath for his com­ments. With ten­sions still high, Singh sus­pend­ed the sit­ting.

When the ses­sion re­sumed, Singh again called on op­po­si­tion mem­bers to re­tract their state­ments. Gon­za­les even­tu­al­ly com­plied, though he voiced his dis­sat­is­fac­tion.

“I will with­draw the com­ment, but Mr Chair, I wish to bring to the coun­try’s at­ten­tion that the Op­po­si­tion is not be­ing treat­ed fair­ly. It is wrong for peo­ple to call us hooli­gans, and the mem­ber who made that al­le­ga­tion is not be­ing asked to apol­o­gise,” Gon­za­les said.

Padarath lat­er with­drew his re­mark as well, al­low­ing pro­ceed­ings to cau­tious­ly con­tin­ue.