PM calls UNC hypocrites for objecting to Parliament sitting

THE Prime Minister dismissed objections raised by Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar to the reconvening of the Parliament on Wednesday, to address errors in the Procurement Act.

Persad-Bissessar charged the reconvening of the Parliament while in recess was in breach of and an undermining of the Constitution. At first, the UNC vowed to stay away but later said its members would attend the special sitting.

At a meeting in Siparia on Tuesday night, Dr Rowley said Persad-Bissessar herself reconvened the Parliament during its recess before, as he questioned why there was an uproar over the PNM government's decision to do the same.

Rowley said, during her tenure as prime minister, Persad-Bissessar took similar action to amend the controversial Section 34.

Section 34 was a clause in the Administration of Justice (Indictable Proceedings) Bill that allowed for an accused person to apply to a judge to be discharged from a case if it had not gone to trial within ten years of charges being laid.

The section was proclaimed by the late President Maxwell Richards on August 31, 2012, while the country was celebrating its 50th anniversary of Independence.

“You all remember Section 34?” Rowley asked supporters.

“In the dead of night, they proclaim one clause of the law to allow their friends to escape the court. When you all rose up in your thousands and march to the President house, what did Kamla Persad-Bissessar do?

“She summoned the Parliament back. Pressure bussing pipe, water more than flour, she summoned the Parliament to come and reverse the law.

“That did not overthrow the country, that did not undermine the Constitution.”

Rowley also noted the summoning of the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) which is also in recess, by Chief Secretary Farley Augustine, to attend an extraordinary session to discuss the issue of the democracy of Tobago on Wednesday morning.

This special session was called amidst the searching of the homes of past and present high-ranking THA officials by the white-collar crime unit over the weekend. The police said the searches were a part of investigations into the content of a leaked audio recording in which people discuss using THA resources to fund a political propaganda campaign.

Saying at the time he was waiting to see what was happening in Tobago, Rowley noted, “I have not heard a word yet from the UNC about the undermining of the THA on that.”

Rowley questioned, “How come it is okay for the UNC government in TT to call out the Parliament?

“It is okay for the Chief Secretary to call out the THA, but it is not okay for the PNM to call out the Parliament and to go and fix what she (Persad-Bissessar) said is an error in the law that we need to use every day going forward.

“I say to you tonight to ignore the UNC. It is only idlers and idlers and more idlers who could spend their time in such useless endeavour.”

Rowley admitted there are difficulties with the law, and said the government was going to fix it.

“We summoned the Parliament to fix it because every single day, somewhere in the government and in many areas of the government, you have to do procurement of some kind or the other.

“You can’t wait until September, when the Parliament comes back to do that, because in the intervening period we have to breathe. We have to work because the country has to go on."