KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George has con­demned Moru­ga/Table­land MP Michelle Ben­jamin for com­ments she made in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day.

Dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tion to the Bud­get de­bate, Ben­jamin echoed com­ments made pop­u­lar by a Debe res­i­dent, af­fec­tion­ate­ly known as “Princess Mar­garet,” sur­round­ing the con­struc­tion of the high­way to Point Fortin sev­er­al years ago.

Those com­ments were orig­i­nal­ly di­rect­ed to Ben­jamin’s boss, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who at the time head­ed the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment.

Dur­ing her con­tri­bu­tions to the bud­get, how­ev­er, Ben­jamin, ref­er­enc­ing a promise made by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert in his pre­sen­ta­tion, said, “I sat and I lis­tened to that bud­get state­ment and again the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance came and promised a high­way. A high­way, madam speak­er? Again, madam speak­er? Madam speak­er, I am tempt­ed to use the words of Princess Mar­garet madam speak­er, when she said, and Princess Mar­garet is a lo­cal celebri­ty, when she said, ‘Let them put that high­way be­tween dey legs’. Madam speak­er let...”

While the com­ments drew laugh­ter and caused an up­roar by many, An­nisette-George asked Ben­jamin to tone down her con­tri­bu­tion, say­ing it was un­ac­cept­able be­hav­iour in the House.

Video clips of Ben­jamin’s com­ments sub­se­quent­ly made the rounds on so­cial me­dia.

Yes­ter­day, An­nisette-George again raised the is­sue as the de­bate con­tin­ued.

“The com­ment made by the mem­ber was very in­ap­pro­pri­ate and dis­taste­ful, and in­for­ma­tion in the pub­lic space has re­in­forced this, as it has al­so pro­vid­ed con­text for that state­ment. The orig­i­nal state­ment was made by a woman against an­oth­er woman who is, in fact, a sit­ting mem­ber of this house. It is un­be­com­ing, to say the least, that a fe­male mem­ber of this house would re­peat such a misog­y­nis­tic com­ment against an­oth­er sit­ting fe­male mem­ber of this house,” An­nisette-George said.

“While mem­bers en­joy the right of free­dom of speech, this right comes with a lev­el of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and as par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, we must hold our­selves to an even high­er stan­dard. It is crit­i­cal that we are ful­ly aware that while mem­bers can make state­ments or ref­er­ence state­ments made by oth­er per­sons, when do­ing so, as a mem­ber, you take full own­er­ship of that state­ment. That state­ment be­comes your state­ment, and it will be held to the same stan­dards of par­lia­men­tary prac­tice, pro­ce­dures and rules as if it were your state­ment. The us­age of the ex­pres­sion that was made by the mem­ber for Moru­ga/Table­land does not re­flect the sta­bil­i­ty of this house. Con­se­quent­ly, such a state­ment has no place in this so­ci­ety and cer­tain­ly not in this house.”

Ben­jamin was ab­sent from Par­lia­ment at the time of the cen­sure.

How­ev­er, in a re­lease yes­ter­day, an un­apolo­getic Ben­jamin re­peat­ed Princess Mar­garet’s com­ments.

She said, “For near­ly a decade, the Gov­ern­ment has re­peat­ed­ly promised progress but has de­liv­ered dis­ap­point­ment. Most re­cent­ly, they have pro­posed a new high­way to Moru­ga. I must say, ‘let them put that high­way up their leg!’ Our roads have de­te­ri­o­rat­ed, and de­spite over $200 mil­lion spent on the Moru­ga Road Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Project, res­i­dents are still wait­ing for re­al im­prove­ments.”

She said the Gov­ern­ment’s claims about the Moru­ga Agro-Pro­cess­ing Plant op­er­at­ing at full ca­pac­i­ty were mis­lead­ing, as on­ly a cou­ple of shells are in use, em­ploy­ing on­ly a hand­ful of peo­ple.

She said the promised Farm School has van­ished from the agen­da and the Moru­ga Fish­ing Fa­cil­i­ty re­mains un­opened de­spite be­ing com­plet­ed.

“We al­so face chron­ic wa­ter short­ages, with some ar­eas go­ing with­out wa­ter for months. The ed­u­ca­tion­al con­di­tions for our chil­dren are ap­palling, and they de­serve much bet­ter. I call on the Gov­ern­ment to in­vest in our youth and re­store es­sen­tial train­ing pro­grammes in our com­mu­ni­ty. Crime rates have reached alarm­ing lev­els, and the re­cent tragedies in our com­mu­ni­ty have on­ly in­ten­si­fied our fears ... This Bud­get is a re­flec­tion of the PNM’s fail­ure to pro­vide re­al so­lu­tions. The peo­ple of Moru­ga/Table­land de­serve a gov­ern­ment that pri­ori­tis­es gen­uine change and progress.”