Confidence men

THEY CALL them no-confidence motions and this one lived up to that title in ways not intended.

Instead of bolstering faith in parliamentary oversight, Wednesday’s attempted censure of National Security Minister Stuart Young by the Opposition damaged it.

There were bombshells that turned out to be eggshells. Politicians shouting at each other. Exchanges over diplomats who had no interest in the proceedings. Sickening personal attacks. Even the infamous anti-covid19 “dome” made an appearance.

We were served grounds for filing a no-confidence motion of our own against all concerned.

Mr Young, who was handed a golden opportunity to account for his ministry’s exemption process, did little to comfort thousands who have been rendered stateless.

Some had believed the minister’s launching of a new online application portal last week was an act of contrition, an acknowledgement that the system was in need of upgrade. Instead, Mr Young struck an unrepentant, unsympathetic note.

The minister did little to clarify lingering questions or to give an adequate account. For instance, why were his officials unable to migrate e-mail correspondence all this time into an electronic system on par with the one he launched last week?

Worse, in what many will regard as an ad-hominem attack on an elderly woman, Mr Young backpedalled on a matter in which he himself had personally intervened in order to grant relief.

“I felt sorry for her,” the minister said of the case of a stranded woman recently highlighted in the media. “There was never an application made by that woman. Regardless, I instructed that an exemption be granted.” We should all be dismayed by a system so arbitrary that an exemption can be granted without an application being made.

The shambolic ending to the debate matched the tenor of the proceedings. Government declined to wait for a wind-up from Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar. The UNC cried abuse.

Yet the Opposition itself faces that charge. From the get-go, the Speaker had to prompt Opposition Whip David Lee to second his own leader’s motion. Perhaps Mr Lee’s reluctance had something to do with the general sense that the whole exercise was a waste of time.

Undoubtedly, Ms Persad-Bissessar was correct in her instinct that the only way to raise the conduct of a minister in Parliament is through a substantive motion. But in seeking sensation, she took away some of the focus on what lay right in front of all MPs on Wednesday: the heartbreaking suffering of citizens who want only to come home.

Meanwhile, another opposition MP's “bombshell” revolved around the disclosure that government officials privately disagreed about the exemption policy. Ministers disagree? Call the police.

Why the Prime Minister, who mere hours before had described Tobago as being on a “precipice” after Monday’s Tobago House of Assembly election, devoted so much attention to this debate is a mystery.