Faris Al-Rawi: UNC continues to shame Trinidad and Tobago

RURAL Development and Local Government Minister Faris Al-Rawi said in and out of government, the UNC, continues to embarrass TT.

He made this comment on Wednesday during his contribution to debate in the House of Representatives on a motion to approve the Economic Sanctions (Implementation of UN Resolutions on the Islamic Republic of Iran) Order, 2023.

Al-Rawi praised Attorney General Reginald Armour SC for outlining the reasons why the House should pass the motion "in a pellucidly clear and precise fashion."

He was not surprised that Princes Town MP Barry Padarath, who spoke immediately after Armour in the debate, appeared confused by what Armour said.

Al-Rawi said Armour was "a man of brevity" who is very precise in his public utterances.

He added, "What is disturbing is that the members of the opposition, not for the first time, seem to be determined to malign our country and to misrepresent our international obligations without any form of control."

Evidence of this, Al-Rawi continued, is clearly found in the Parliament's Hansard record on January 11, 2019.

"You can see (then) the UNC's first iteration of the implementation of these economic sanctions (against Iran)."

Al-Rawi, who was AG at that time, recalled it was Naparima MP Rodney Charles who raised similar arguments then to what Padarath raised minutes earlier.

He reminded MPs that countries have specific obligations to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

"The FATF is not a new creature to this Parliament or to this country and certainly not to the UNC."

TT has had four mutual evaluations to date by the FATF to ensure it is compliant with measures to prevent money laundering and financing of terrorism.

The fourth evaluation took place in January 2015, when the UNC-led People's Partnership coalition was in government.

Al-Rawi said, "The Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago in January 2015 was the Member for Siparia (Kamla Persad-Bissessar)."

Charles was TT's permanent representative at the UN at that time.

Al-Rawi observed that Charles sits close to Persad-Bissessar and Padarath on the opposition's benches.

He recalled, "It was as a result of an abysmal failure by TT from the on site visit (by FATF) in January 2015 under the UNC, we failed our fourth mutual evaluation.

Al-Rawi said the FATF report on that evaluation which was published in June 2016, showed TT was non-compliant in several areas.

Tying it to the motion, Al-Rawi said the UNC's FATF failure meant TT was non-compliant with targeted financial sanctions from bodies like the UN, related to anyone who could produce weapons of mass destruction.

He added this was connected to "a number of UN recommendations, security council resolutions."

Many of the resolutions dealt with Iran.

Al-Rawi wondered how the UNC could approach the population with"an intellectual straight face" and claim the World Bank deals with terrorist financing.

He said, "The World Bank does not assess anybody for terrorist financing or money laundering or any of those compliance obligations."

Only FATF does that. Al-Rawi was baffled why Persad-Bissessar, Padarath and Charles could not speak to each other on the facts of this matter.

He quipped that Padarath was lazy to use his Parliament provided-Ipad to access the AG and Legal Affairs Ministry's website to access all the previous orders passed to honour TT's obligations to support UN economic sanctions against Iran.

"It's right there."

Al-Rawi said this was another example of the UNC continuing to engage in a "glorified hodgepoge of foolishness."