Indarsingh claims Imbert gone rogue

COUVA South MP Rudranath Indarsingh accused Finance Minister Colm Imbert of being a "rogue" and desperate minister who has no regard for the Industrial Relations Act.

He made this charge on Wednesday as he responded to Imbert's warning in the Senate on Tuesday that if a collective agreement reached between the Public Services Association (PSA) and the National Insurance Board (NIB), under the former People's Partnership (PP) government, was implemented, it could cost taxpayers $7 billion.

Imbert said,"The investigations of the Ministry of Finance so far, have indicated, as far as we have been told, that the management of the NIB did not inform the board of the ministerial directive of March 25, 2011."

He added, "So far as I am aware, the management (of the NIB) is being called upon to explain why this letter from the the minister of finance was not made known to the board of the NIB."

Former St Augustine MP Winston Dookeran was finance minister between May 28, 2010 and June, 2012. When contacted on Tuesday, Dookeran said, "I don't have the information available at this point in time to comment on that."

In March 2011, Indarsingh was minister of state in the Labour Ministry. In a statement on Wednesday, he claimed Imbert misled the country by saying the agreement was signed under the PP.

"In reality, the agreement, which is for the bargaining period 2014-2016, was signed by the Government on October 20, 2020, under the administration of Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley."

Indarsingh claimed, " It is therefore, the Government of which Colm Imbert is Finance Minister that validated the agreement under question." He further alleged that Imbert "has stopped woefully short of telling the truth."

Indarsingh said Imbert had six years to review this agreement and never indicated any concern about it.

"The fact is that Minister Imbert is scrambling for a reason to not assemble monies owed to workers because of his own inability to stimulate cash flows needed to restore prosperity in the country."

Indarsingh argued that Imbert's "unjustifiably alarmist statement against that agreement is intended at setting the stage for the PNM to deny workers...the monies to which they are entitled, and to conceal his own functional impotence as Minister of Finance."

On Tuesday, PSA president Watson Duke said the union met with the NIB last October and the collective agreement was valid. He accused Imbert of continuing to "provoke, harass and dog these workers for monies that are owed to them."