For­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal says her at­tor­neys are re­view­ing state­ments made about her by Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein in Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day.

In a state­ment sent to the me­dia, the for­mer min­is­ter called the com­ments false, mis­lead­ing, lu­di­crous and mis­chie­vous.

Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal, an at­tor­ney, is­sued the state­ment af­ter the de­bate in the Low­er House on amend­ments for ex­tra fund­ing for the 2025 Bud­get on Wednes­day.

Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal was a sen­a­tor in the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment gov­ern­ment and is no longer a mem­ber of the cur­rent Par­lia­ment. The names of sev­er­al non-Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans in­clud­ing State agency of­fi­cials and at­tor­neys were called by Gov­ern­ment MPs as they made claims about spend­ing by the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tions and those who ben­e­fit­ted from such.

Ho­sein queried is­sues con­cern­ing sev­er­al for­mer gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials- in­clud­ing on Pa­lo Seco Agri­cul­tur­al En­ter­pris­es Ltd and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny mat­ters- in­clud­ing the for­mer min­is­ter of agri­cul­ture, for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Vish­nu Dhan­paul, the for­mer PAESL chair­man and a di­rec­tor. Ho­sein al­so queried the con­tracts award­ed un­der for­mer Min­is­ters Kaz­im Ho­sein and Faris Al-Rawi.

Ho­sein claimed, “I now have com­pa­nies that are linked to Kei­th Row­ley, ex-min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein, PNM sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi, one Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal.” He al­so named own­ers of oth­er pri­vate sec­tor com­pa­nies.

But Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal said, “In re­sponse to some al­le­ga­tions I un­der­stand Mr Ho­sein made against my name: I cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly state that the Min­is­ter’s state­ments are false, mis­lead­ing, lu­di­crous and mis­chie­vous. They are cal­cu­lat­ed to make bold un­sup­port­ed al­le­ga­tions against me un­der the pro­tec­tion of Par­lia­men­tary priv­i­leges.”

She added, “I chal­lenge him to make them out­side of the Par­lia­ment. My bands and robes are ready and my le­gal team is ea­ger­ly await­ing.

“I have served T&T with the high­est lev­el of hon­esty and in­tegri­ty and through­out my term in of­fice I have jeal­ous­ly guard­ed my good name and I will con­tin­ue to fierce­ly do so. I’ve there­fore brought this mat­ter to the at­ten­tion of my at­tor­neys at law and I ea­ger­ly await their ad­vice and guid­ance,” Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal added.

Mean­while, Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed sev­er­al at­tor­neys named by Ho­sein in Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day who re­ceived mil­lions in State briefs un­der the PNM gov­ern­ment, in­clud­ing Se­nior Coun­sels Dou­glas Mendes, Gilbert Pe­ter­son, Fyard Ho­sein, Ter­rence Bar­rath and for­mer min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi. How­ev­er, no one re­spond­ed.