Moonilal: Issue is about Constitutional rights

WHILE he is required to submit his personal statement on the Privileges Committee report in writing, a defiant Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal has once again reiterated the matter is not about snakes or lead or apologies, but about Constitutional rights.

Moonilal is expected to submit a written statement that he made a threatening comment to Laventille West MP Fitzgerald Hinds at the next Parliamentary sitting on Wednesday.

But addressing supporters at the UNC’s second pavement report at the Union Presbyterian primary school in Duncan Village on Saturday night, Moonilal said the matter is currently in the local courts and may eventually end up going all the way to the London-based Privy Council.

“This matter has nothing to do with snake and nothing to do with lead pencil and any other type of lead. It has to do with our Constitutional rights...that is the issue.

"A matter is in the court where I have raised an issue as to how I was treated in the Parliament and that my Constitutional rights were violated. That matter may go all the way to the Privy Council, the Privy Council may eventually have to rule, my lawyers Anand Ramlogan, SC, and Gerald Ramdeen have told us we have a strong and compelling case to win," Moonilal said.

Moonilal also slammed Prime Minister Dr Rowley's boast that National Security, Communications Minister and Minister in the Ministry of the Office of the Prime Minister Stuart Young, is the government's Garry Sobers, the legendary former West Indies all-rounder.

Moonilal said Young can't even play hopscotch let alone be compared to cricketing great Sobers and added that the only thing Young, the PNM and Sobers have in common was the Sobers declaration of 1968.

In that Test match against England, the then WI captain declared the Windies' 2nd inns, leaving the opposition a target of 215 to win and an entire day in which to do so. England eventually won that Test.

“The only similarity that fella have to Sobers is when he declare in the Oval, they call that a Sobers declaration. And anytime they call an election, it will be for the PNM, a Sobers declaration,” Moonilal said.