Moonilal: Plot to gag me in budget debate

MP DR Roodal Moonilal has not been told exactly what it means that he “not be recognised” by the House of Representatives, but reckons it is a ploy to stop him speaking in the budget debate usually held in September, when he is planning a big exposé.

Asked to speak to Newsday yesterday, he quipped, “Yes, I’m happy to say I can talk.”

Last week Wednesday, Moonilal verbally said sorry to PNM MP Fitzgerald Hinds for the remark, "Snake has lead for you" (referring to a character who had splashed Hinds on a tour of the flood-hit Beetham Estate), after which a divided House voted that he must formally apologise.

The Oropouche East MP said he was apparently the first MP to be so gagged in post-independence TT, using the device of a gag order developed in the UK in 1755.

“I’m the first elected person in our independence history to have received such a repressive and oppressive sanction. Fifty thousand citizens are now voiceless, including 27,000 voters in Oropouche East.”

Asked what the censure meant, he said, “They have not sent me anything in writing. Like the rest of the population, I’m at a loss.”

While it was clear he cannot speak in the House, he sarcastically asked if he was being let inside simply for his good looks or for the way he dressed.

“One macabre development is that I have received more information on corruption by the Government in the energy sector. Just at the time I am putting that together to expose them, I get this gag order.” He recalled exposing similar details in a past budget debate.

“This is a deliberate attempt to gag me for the budget," he claimed. "I received fresh information from Washington, DC, with regard to matters I raised earlier in Parliament.”

Asked if this pertained to friends of the Prime Minister, he replied, “Yes, friends of the PM and the possible involvement of senior Cabinet official(s).”

He said, “I may have to prepare a brief for other colleagues to read out in the House. Or I may have to take it to one of the UNC’s successful Pavement Report meetings.”

Moonilal said on Thursday he would be meeting both his legal advisers plus residents and party officials from his constituency.

“Residents of Oropouche East are now saying they ought not to pay taxes to the Government because they have no representation in Parliament. Down the ages the clarion call has been, ‘No taxation without representation.'”

Newsday asked about his letter, read out by the Speaker in the House on Wednesday, in which he said any apology could compromise his legal action before the High Court next Monday.

“We believe the Privileges Committee was illegal in its composition. It is before the law courts,” he said, and if the committee was illegal, then so too was the “poisonous fruit” that flowed from it, that is, its call for him to apologise to Hinds. Moonilal said while the committee was supposed to be made up of six members, in fact there were eight or nine. Further, some were temporary members, he complained.

The Parliament website names the Privileges Committee as Bridgid Annisette-George, Camille Robinson-Regis, Hinds, Stuart Young, Rudy Indarsingh and Barry Padarath, as chosen by the Speaker on November 2, 2018. However the report said on November 30 the Speaker appointed Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly and Anthony Garcia to serve temporarily upon the recussal of Robinson-Regis and Hinds respectively.

The names of Annisette-George, Gadsby-Dolly, Garcia, Young, Indarsingh and Padarath were listed on the minutes of the committee's second, third and forth meetings (respectively January 7, Febuary 5 and June 17. Spaces for these six names to be signed were left on the report after "Respectfully submitted."

Moonilal said the court on Monday would be told the committee was allegedly illegally constituted, and he had personally suffered as a result of that illegal composition.

Newsday called House Leader Camille Robinson-Regis but her phone went to voicemail.

Meanwhile Parliament sources told Newsday that Moonilal should continue to receive his salary and be allowed to attend the House, but not speak, but were uncertain as to whether or not he could vote on motions and bills, but promised to research this.