“Delin­quen­cy and fool­ish­ness.”

That was how Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley de­scribed Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar af­ter her walk out of yes­ter­day’s de­bate on To­ba­go’s self-gov­er­nance.

Dur­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s con­tri­bu­tion to the de­bate, his one-hour long speak­ing time was ex­tend­ed for an­oth­er 60 min­utes which prompt­ed the loud walk­out by Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the en­tire Op­po­si­tion bench.

In a re­sponse yes­ter­day Row­ley said that he was “amazed” that any po­lit­i­cal par­ty, much less one that was in Op­po­si­tion, al­lowed their leader to be­have in that man­ner.

He ques­tioned why any­one would “put up with the delin­quen­cy and fool­ish­ness that is Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar”.

“Imag­ine a fun­da­men­tal­ly im­por­tant de­bate like this with such far-reach­ing con­se­quences and the leader of the Op­po­si­tion wouldn’t wake up to be in the Par­lia­ment for a 10:30 am start,” he said.

“She is miss­ing in ac­tion through­out,” he said.

Row­ley said that Per­sad-Bisses­sar “sac­ri­fices her lead­er­less, un­in­formed and in­ex­pe­ri­enced neo­phytes to car­ry the de­bate in a most am­a­teur­ish way.”

“Af­ter two days of this miss­ing leader, she ap­pears like a green mi­rage in the Par­lia­ment cham­ber to shout at the Speak­er,” he said of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s con­duct.

“Then worst, rush to call a press con­fer­ence to play the vic­tim and make fool­ish ac­cu­sa­tions and en­gage in fu­tile name-call­ing. How of­ten will she do that?” he asked.

Af­ter the walk­out by the en­tire Op­po­si­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar held an im­promp­tu press con­fer­ence on the pave­ment in front of the Red House and de­scribed the pro­ceed­ings in­side as a “fla­grant breach” of sound Par­lia­men­tary con­duct.

The To­ba­go self-gov­er­nance bill was moved by Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is who ced­ed her time to al­low the Prime Min­is­ter to speak and to close off the de­bate, which was the crux of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ar­gu­ment.

Robin­son-Reg­is yes­ter­day de­fend­ed the Prime Min­is­ter’s speak­ing time and ex­ten­sion, say­ing that ac­cord­ing to the ex­ist­ing Stand­ing Or­der 46 (2), a min­is­ter had a right to re­ply.

“In my cir­cum­stance, I in­di­cat­ed that I ced­ed my right of re­ply, as mover, to the Prime Min­is­ter,” Robin­son-Reg­is said.

“If there was any­thing wrong with that, you can be as­sured that the Speak­er would have in­di­cat­ed same,” she said, adding that the House Speak­er said noth­ing.

“As a con­se­quence of that, un­der those cir­cum­stances, we did what was best un­der those cir­cum­stances,” she said.

“Let me make the point that this is a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment, this is some­thing that touch­es and con­cerns the peo­ple in To­ba­go in par­tic­u­lar.

“It was im­por­tant for Dr Row­ley to be giv­en the time to speak,” she said.

Robin­son-Reg­is added that she found it “dis­turb­ing” that though Per­sad-Bisses­sar was near the pro­ceed­ings, she chose not to en­ter the cham­ber.

“She chose not to par­tic­i­pate in a de­bate of such im­por­tance,” she said.

“We are very con­cerned that the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion should choose on this oc­ca­sion not to have her voice heard, we are con­cerned but not sur­prised,” she said.

Robin­son-Reg­is said that Per­sad-Bisses­sar was “hard­ly ever” in the cham­ber.

She said that Per­sad-Bisses­sar was “com­plete­ly dis­re­spect­ful” by ar­gu­ing with the Deputy Speak­er.

“We find that high­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate and to­tal­ly dis­re­spect­ful,” she said.