RENU­KA SINGH

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Sen­a­tors Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al and David Nakhid are chal­leng­ing state­ments made by In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors An­tho­ny Vieira and Paul Richards about Thurs­day’s failed mo­tion to re­move Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes over the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) fi­as­co.

Vieira has been re­port­ed as de­scrib­ing Thurs­day’s pro­ceed­ings as a “fish mar­ket” and said that he was of­fend­ed that the UNC mem­bers had said the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors vot­ed with the Gov­ern­ment to toe the line. Richards too has been re­port­ed as liken­ing the at­mos­phere cre­at­ed by the Op­po­si­tion to that of a fish mar­ket.

Yes­ter­day, Lutch­me­di­al ques­tioned why Vieira stayed silent on Thurs­day but chose to at­tack the Op­po­si­tion in the me­dia.

“If the Sen­a­tor thought any­one was con­flict­ed, he had a du­ty to raise it in the cham­ber so his al­le­ga­tion could be prop­er­ly an­swered. No In­de­pen­dent or PNM mem­ber who sat in the House raised that is­sue, which is sur­pris­ing as they are all quite com­fort­able rais­ing points that lack sub­stance,” she said in a re­lease.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s mo­tion was sparked by the chain of events that led to the even­tu­al col­lapse of the PSC and the High Court rul­ing which made the act­ing ap­point­ment of for­mer CoP Gary Ger­if­fith, af­ter his three-year tenure end­ed in Au­gust, as well as that of Mc Don­ald Ja­cob null and void, ef­fec­tive­ly leav­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice with no sub­stan­tive head.

Vieira re­port­ed­ly took such strong ob­jec­tion to the Op­po­si­tion’s al­le­ga­tions about toe­ing the line when they vot­ed against the mo­tion that he said he in­tend­ed to bring a mo­tion of con­tempt against them.

Lutch­me­di­al ac­cused Viera of a lack of un­der­stand­ing of the is­sues that led to the UNC mo­tion, which was de­feat­ed fol­low­ing a vote of 24 for and 47 against.

“Sen­a­tor Vieira has dis­played (per­haps) will­ful ig­no­rance and lack of un­der­stand­ing of the is­sues at hand. He vot­ed against the mo­tion with­out an ap­pre­ci­a­tion of the salient facts, which is a com­plete be­tray­al of his oath of of­fice,” she said.

She al­so ac­cused Vieira of wear­ing “bal­isi­er-coloured glass­es.”

“In­stead of par­rot­ing PNM pro­pa­gan­da, Sen­a­tor Viera should read the mo­tion filed by the Ho­n­ourable Mem­ber for Siparia and all the in­for­ma­tion in the pub­lic do­main sur­round­ing this de­ba­cle. This may pro­vide an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­er­cise some in­de­pen­dent thought on se­ri­ous mat­ters af­fect­ing the coun­try, in­stead of com­ment­ing on the be­hav­iour of oth­ers with sanc­ti­mo­nious piety. If he wants to dis­cuss im­por­tant mat­ters in whis­pered tones over tea and crum­pets, he can do that on his own time,” Lutch­me­di­al said.

“The UNC will have its voice heard in­side and out­side of the Par­lia­ment. They can mute our mikes but not our voic­es,” she added.

In a ref­er­ence to In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Charisse Seep­er­sad, who re­fused to re­cuse her­self, as per a UNC re­quest, be­cause she is the sis­ter of PSC chair­man Bliss Seep­er­sad, Lutch­me­di­al said Par­lia­ment was “not a place to shield your col­leagues, who see no is­sue with pur­su­ing pri­vate in­ter­ests by vot­ing against the es­tab­lish­ment of a tri­bunal to in­ves­ti­gate mat­ters which in­volve pos­si­ble wrong­do­ing by their sib­ling, but who ab­stain from vot­ing on mat­ters that af­fect na­tion­al in­ter­est like the gut­ting of the Pro­cure­ment Act.”

“That be­hav­iour, in my view, is worse than what we see in any fish mar­ket, as the fish­mon­gers and those who pa­tro­n­ise them ex­hib­it a high­er lev­el of de­cen­cy, hon­esty and in­tegri­ty,” she said.

Lutch­me­di­al said it was cu­ri­ous that Vieira con­sid­ered the Op­po­si­tion desk-thump­ing “un­be­com­ing of Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, but is com­fort­able with call­ing cit­i­zens “id­iots.”

“The Op­po­si­tion Sen­ate bench will not be in­tim­i­dat­ed by the pomp and ar­ro­gance of some­one who no one vot­ed for and who re­fus­es to stand for what is right and just. The false and deroga­to­ry state­ments made by Sen­a­tor Vieira about mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion and their con­duct on­ly serves to bol­ster the view that the Sen­a­tor is more ea­ger to join the PNM cam­paign to si­lence the voice of the Op­po­si­tion, as op­posed to seek­ing an­swers on be­half of the pop­u­la­tion,” Lutch­me­di­al said.

“We re­main com­mit­ted to our du­ty de­spite any mis­guid­ed di­a­tribes em­a­nat­ing from those who hide be­hind the fig leaf of an in­de­pen­dent ti­tle.”

Mean­while, her col­league Nakhid tack­led both Vieira and Richards, say­ing they were act­ing like judge, ju­ry and ex­e­cu­tion­er.

“Sen­a­tor Vieira made the wildest of al­le­ga­tions that mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion had im­put­ed the in­tegri­ty and rep­u­ta­tion of In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors by say­ing that they are not in­de­pen­dent and that they were “singing for their sup­per.” Sen­a­tor Vieira fails to re­alise the irony and hypocrisy of such a blan­ket state­ment against un­named mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion – ef­fec­tive­ly, against all of us – and if Sen­a­tor Vieira does not im­me­di­ate­ly with­draw this state­ment which im­pli­cates my­self and oth­er Sen­a­tors, who made no such re­marks, the Sen­a­tor will be tak­en be­fore the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee,” Nakhid said in a state­ment.

“To add in­sult to his own du­plic­i­ty, Sen­a­tor Vieira prof­fered a lengthy di­a­tribe on the pro­ceed­ings in Par­lia­ment, in­clud­ing the opin­ion “that the mo­tion should not have even seen the light of day,” and this with­out hav­ing heard any de­bate on said mo­tion.”

He added, “Well, Sen­a­tor Vieira is en­ti­tled to his opin­ion and so are we. The cit­i­zens of this coun­try will look past the hyp­o­crit­i­cal, well-clothed in­ci­vil­i­ty that pass­es for in­de­pen­dence by many com­men­ta­tors in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“As for Sen­a­tor Paul Richards, who likened the pro­ceed­ings and by im­pli­ca­tion the be­hav­iour of the Op­po­si­tion to a fish mar­ket, I will re­spect­ful­ly in­form the Sen­a­tor that some­times in a fish mar­ket, the stench that aris­es can be com­ing from your own stall. For these un­war­rant­ed and un­nec­es­sary at­tacks by both the afore­men­tioned In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors, we await the quick­est of apolo­gies in like man­ner to the in­sults giv­en.”

Ef­forts to con­tact Vieira for a com­ment yes­ter­day were un­suc­cess­ful as he nei­ther an­swered his phone nor re­spond­ed to mes­sages.