Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Op­po­si­tion doesn’t sup­port the whistle­blow­er leg­is­la­tion which will be de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment to­mor­row. The Bill re­quires sup­port from four Op­po­si­tion MPs for pas­sage, how­ev­er, Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots sup­port­ers Rush­ton Paray, Rod­ney Charles and Rai Rag­bir say they will be guid­ed by their Chief Whip’s in­struc­tions about vot­ing.

Yes­ter­day UNC deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal made it clear the par­ty won’t sup­port the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion Bill as it did in 2022 when it was first brought to Par­lia­ment.

De­bate on the leg­is­la­tion was ad­journed in that year and the bill was car­ried over in­to the 2023 and 2024 ses­sions of Par­lia­ment.

De­bate re­sumes at 1.30 pm to­mor­row and it’s ex­pect­ed that a vote will be tak­en.

The Bill is aimed at com­bat­ting cor­rup­tion and oth­er wrong­do­ings by en­cour­ag­ing and fa­cil­i­tat­ing dis­clo­sures of im­prop­er con­duct in the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tors. It seeks to pro­tect per­sons mak­ing those dis­clo­sures from detri­men­tal ac­tion and reg­u­late re­ceiv­ing, in­ves­ti­gat­ing or oth­er­wise deal­ing with dis­clo­sures of im­prop­er con­duct.

At last Fri­day’s sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Camille Robin­son-Reg­is said the Bill would be de­bat­ed this Fri­day and if there was time, she said the de­bate on an­oth­er bill deal­ing with poly­graph and drug test­ing for the se­cu­ri­ty sec­tor and oth­er per­son­nel would al­so be done.

Robin­son-Reg­is didn’t re­ply to ques­tions about why the de­bate of the Whistle­blow­er Bill is con­tin­u­ing now, whether there are any changes and about Op­po­si­tion sup­port.

The pre­vi­ous de­bate was pi­lot­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

So far, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 19 Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion MPs have par­tic­i­pat­ed in the bill, par­tic­u­lar­ly par­ty front­lin­ers and at­tor­neys on both sides. Af­ter oth­ers speak to­day, it’s ex­pect­ed the vote will be tak­en.

Sec­tions of the Bill are in­con­sis­tent with Sec­tions Four and Five of the Con­sti­tu­tion and re­quire a three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty for pas­sage.

Gov­ern­ment sources said the spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty re­quires 26 votes in sup­port of the leg­is­la­tion. That means in ad­di­tion to the PNM’s 22 MPs, the votes of four UNC MPs are need­ed for pas­sage.

Mooni­lal, who spoke in the de­bate of the Bill in 2022, said: “The Op­po­si­tion has very, very se­ri­ous con­cerns about this Bill in the con­text of con­sti­tu­tion­al rights where fair­ness, jus­tice and the right to con­front ac­cusers as well as oth­er as­pects are con­cerned.

“The PNM has no moral au­thor­i­ty to speak about whistle­blow­ers when they fire, hunt down and witch­hunt peo­ple who bring in­for­ma­tion to the pub­lic on cor­rup­tion and mis­man­age­ment. Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley is in his last po­lit­i­cal days. Whether this bill pass­es or not won’t change any­thing, they’ve proven in­ca­pable of deal­ing with every­thing from law and or­der to fi­nance and the econ­o­my.”

Mooni­lal took is­sue with Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert’s state­ment in the Sen­ate on Tues­day that the Bud­get deficit isn’t ex­pect­ed to be as high as $9 bil­lion, al­though he gave the $9 bil­lion deficit pro­jec­tion dur­ing the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives de­bate last Fri­day.

“We there­fore can­not be­lieve a word Im­bert says. It’s one thing last week and an­oth­er thing this week. With in­con­sis­tent state­ments you have to be­lieve the econ­o­my has in­deed col­lapsed,” he said.

“We par­tic­u­lar­ly can­not be­lieve Im­bert giv­en the cri­sis with pub­lic ac­count­ing, vis a vis the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al and them bul­ly­ing her. UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has pro­duced an ex­plo­sive Cab­i­net note which sug­gests the econ­o­my has col­lapsed and they in­tend to use shock treat­ment. There­fore the on­ly thing that will bring change is chang­ing the Gov­ern­ment.”

UNC dis­si­dents toe­ing par­ty line

Mooni­lal said he ex­pect­ed all UNC MPs to be in Par­lia­ment for to­mor­row’s de­bate.

In the par­ty di­vi­sion caused by cam­paign­ing for the par­ty’s na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion on Sat­ur­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar who is back­ing the in­cum­bent Star team, re­cent­ly com­plained that MPs sup­port­ing the ri­val UP slate col­leagues had ab­scond­ed from Par­lia­ment dur­ing last month’s vote on mat­ters in­volv­ing the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al.

UNC sources said Chief Whip David Lee sent an email to all MPs last week­end telling them to be pre­pared for the de­bate.

On Tues­day Paray said he will be at­tend­ing Par­lia­ment to­mor­row and con­tin­ues to “op­er­ate un­der the hand of the Whip and will be guid­ed ac­cord­ing­ly.”

UP sup­port­er Rod­ney Charles al­so said he is at­tend­ing.

“I’ve al­ready spo­ken in the Whistle­blow­er Bill de­bate in a pre­vi­ous par­lia­men­tary ses­sion and there­fore will not be ex­pect­ed to speak to­mor­row,” he said.

“I’ll be guid­ed by the par­ty whip as to how we’ll vote on the bill. Last Fri­day I was, like my col­leagues Ram­bal­ly, Haynes and Rush­ton, ful­ly pre­pared to speak in Par­lia­ment on the mid-year re­view de­bate but was not se­lect­ed by the whip to speak. Part of my in­tend­ed sub­mis­sion deal­ing with the Gov­ern­ment’s over­re­liance on a rosy IMF re­port was sub­se­quent­ly sent to the me­dia via a re­lease.”

An­oth­er UP sup­port­er, Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Rai Rag­bir said: “Yes, I’m at­tend­ing Par­lia­ment. I’m not sure of the par­ty’s po­si­tion at this time. I wait like my oth­er par­lia­men­tar­i­an col­leagues to be guid­ed by po­lit­i­cal leader Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the chief whip David Lee.”

Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly said he is at­tend­ing Par­lia­ment but did not say whether he would sup­port the bill, while Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne didn’t re­spond to calls for com­ment.