sto­ries by Renu­ka Singh

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Var­ma Deyals­ingh yes­ter­day de­scribed the Op­po­si­tion’s de­c­la­ra­tion of war against all in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors as “un­for­tu­nate.”

Deyals­ingh said he re­served the right to vote ac­cord­ing to his con­science and to re­spect­ful­ly dis­agree with the poli­cies and opin­ions of both the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion.

The Op­po­si­tion has been on the warpath since its mo­tion to re­move Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes was de­feat­ed last Thurs­day, even tar­get­ing in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, whom they said could not be tru­ly in­de­pen­dent as they were nom­i­nat­ed by Pres­i­dent and there­fore be­hold­en to her.

The Op­po­si­tion said this was the rea­son the In­de­pen­dent bench vot­ed with the Gov­ern­ment and against the mo­tion.

But Deyals­ingh yes­ter­day dis­missed this sug­ges­tion, say­ing, “If the Op­po­si­tion Leader thought we would be bi­ased be­cause we were cho­sen by the Pres­i­dent, she should have asked all of us to re­frain from par­tic­i­pat­ing in the vote be­fore the fact and not af­ter we all vot­ed not to sup­port her mo­tion.”

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira first spoke out against the at­tacks by the Op­po­si­tion, not­ing that he was so of­fend­ed by the at­tacks, which in­clud­ed the sug­ges­tion that the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors were “singing for their sup­pers,” he was plan­ning to bring a mo­tion of con­tempt against the of­fend­ing Op­po­si­tion mem­bers.

While the oth­er in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors have re­fused to com­ment on the is­sue, Deyals­ingh yes­ter­day said the Op­po­si­tion had every “rea­son to ques­tion the col­lapse of the PSC and the present predica­ment we have found our­selves in.”

Deyals­ingh said that as chair­man of the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) on Lo­cal Au­thor­i­ties, Ser­vice Com­mis­sions and Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties, in­clud­ing the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA), the PSC falls un­der his com­mit­tees’ purview and the body has the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to in­ves­ti­gate the meth­ods of PSC op­er­a­tions and re­port to Par­lia­ment.

“While on­go­ing court mat­ters may serve to clar­i­fy and treat with some of the is­sues raised and at this present time our pub­lic de­lib­er­a­tions may be sub ju­dice, once the tim­ing is right, the JSC would be able to get an­swers on how er­rors oc­curred and be able to sug­gest putting things in place to as­sist in pre­vent­ing this un­for­tu­nate spec­ta­cle from re­oc­cur­ring by giv­ing rec­om­men­da­tions on how the PSC can im­prove its per­for­mance and meet its man­date,” he said.

Deyals­ingh said the Con­sti­tu­tion gives the PSC this im­por­tant man­date which serves to safe­guard against any po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence in the process and we need to work to­wards achiev­ing con­fi­dence.

“Each in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor acts on his own,” he said.

“When we were ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent, we had a one-off train­ing ses­sion on ethics and be­hav­iour in of­fice. We are ex­pect­ed to take our oath se­ri­ous­ly but we are not re­quired to re­port to the Pres­i­dent, nor toe any line. It is un­fair to paint each In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor with the same brush,” he said.

“I re­spect the role of the Op­po­si­tion in our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety and hope in­stead of at­tack­ing us, we could work along­side each oth­er for the ben­e­fit of our cit­i­zens.” Deyals­ingh said the UNC was not wrong for chal­leng­ing the state of the PSC.

“The dai­ly mur­der­ous at­tacks on cit­i­zens with no sub­stan­tive CoP is in­deed an alarm­ing sit­u­a­tion, but we have seen this sit­u­a­tion in the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion, when Stephen Williams act­ed as Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice since 7th Au­gust 2012 af­ter Dwayne Gibbs was forced to re­sign as CoP,” Deyals­ingh said.

Deyals­ingh said while the Op­po­si­tion had every right to ques­tion the in­de­pen­dence of some of the com­mis­sions, he re­called that un­der a dif­fer­ent ad­min­is­tra­tion, a com­mis­sion­er was ap­point­ed to a pre­vi­ous Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion and that per­son had a broth­er who was as a min­is­ter of gov­ern­ment.

“Some of these de­ci­sions have left pa­tri­ot­ic cit­i­zens want­i­ng more from the politi­cians who wield pow­er,” he said.

Deyals­ingh said even in a me­dia re­lease on Feb­ru­ary 16, for­mer Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith had the opin­ion that Per­sad-Bisses­sar and an Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor were “hyp­ocrites and mon­sters.”

“If the Op­po­si­tion thinks I have been ‘toe­ing the Gov­ern­ment line’, I hope my con­tri­bu­tions in the Sen­ate would show a dif­fer­ent pic­ture,” Deyals­ingh said.

“I take of­fence to any al­le­ga­tion of feel­ing ‘su­pe­ri­or and look­ing down on the oth­ers’, as my ser­vice to the most dis­crim­i­nat­ed in so­ci­ety, the men­tal­ly ill, will at­test to the fact I try my best to serve these per­sons.”

He said for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day called in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors ‘the par­a­sitic oli­garchy’ but he al­so said that pol­i­tics had a moral­i­ty of its own.

“Which may ex­plain the be­hav­iour of some politi­cians,” he said.

“I would like to men­tion I did not re­new my con­tract with the NWRHA to be able to have the abil­i­ty to in­de­pen­dent­ly point out the in­ef­fi­cien­cies in the pub­lic health sys­tem. I sin­cere­ly miss my pa­tients who I have been serv­ing since 1989 and have de­vel­oped strong bonds with,” Deyals­ingh said.

“I don’t con­sid­er it par­a­sitic be­hav­iour to put my­self in a po­si­tion to lose both emo­tion­al­ly and fi­nan­cial­ly.”

Deyals­ingh said he has nev­er even held a golf club like Pan­day did.

“In my Sen­ate de­bate on the Bud­get, I called on the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance to con­sid­er a one-off wealth tax which was al­so pro­posed by for­mer USA Pres­i­dent Oba­ma to as­sist Pres­i­dent Biden to achieve his fis­cal poli­cies. I don’t think an oli­garch would have made such a sug­ges­tion,” he re­called.

On Mon­day, Deyals­ingh’s col­league, Maria Dil­lon-Re­my, al­so rub­bished the sug­ges­tion that In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors were be­hold­en to the Pres­i­dent.

Not­ing they do not re­port to the Pres­i­dent, she said, “The Pres­i­dent ex­pects that we take our path se­ri­ous­ly. I do.”

She said ex­am­ines every­thing on its mer­it and al­ways sought to do the best for the coun­try.