Integrity puts Manning to sleep

The issue of integrity does not seem to greatly interest Prime Minister Patrick Manning. On Friday, the Lower House dealt with issues pertaining to the Integrity in Public Life Act, 2000. Mr Manning came to the chamber 15 minutes late, while his colleague, Legal Affairs Minister Camille Robinson-Regis was halfway through her presentation. Later, Manning slept through most of Opposition MP Kamla Persad Bissessar’s incisive rejoinder to Robinson-Regis. In contrast to Manning’s tardiness, newly-elected PNM chairman and Works Minister Franklyn Khan came in 15 minutes early and sat in his new seat at the Prime Minister’s right hand. Khan, who looked tired, had exchanged his cherubically smiling self for a more sober facade, while Health Minister Colm Imbert, who also came in early, had after several grim-faced Parliamentary sessions regained his normal bantering demeanour. The absence of Planning Minister Keith Rowley, who had been moved down in the pecking order to make way for Khan, was noticeable, but Rowley came in just before two o’clock and seemed quite normal. Later in the session, he even addressed a light-hearted comment to Khan, who blinked in puzzled surprise.

But not only the new seating arrangements, but also the motion on the Order Paper reminded everyone of the impending reshuffle in the Manning administration. The motion was in the Attorney General’s name, but Glenda Morean did not present it. This wasn’t because she was no longer the AG, however, but because she was out of the country. As Legal Affairs Minister, Robinson-Regis was a logical, but unfortunate, replacement. Integrity is a touchy political subject, and Robinson-Regis has a high voice which stops just short of a quaver and a habit of pausing to swallow while she speaks: not traits which lend an impression of conviction. And, indeed, Kamla was quick to suggest, “She obviously didn’t believe what she was saying.” Robinson-Regis spent a circumlocutory, repetitive 30 minutes presenting a motion to put the Integrity Act under the scrutiny of a select committee of Parliament. This was a last-minute amendment to the original motion, which would have seen the laying of the prescribed forms for Members of Parliament and other persons in public life to declare their assets, as required by law. The Government, said Robinson-Regis, was concerned that in the new Act “the persons who are captured by the forms is [sic] much more [sic] expanded [sic]”. So they wanted “a scrutiny of the instruments on technical grounds,” so they could “benefit from the wisdom of the Integrity Commission and other experts.” When Kamla got up to respond to Robinson-Regis, she prefaced her comments by apologising for her strained voice, since she had contracted the latest virus (“I believe they’re calling it the Hubert Alleyne,” she told Speaker Barry Sinanan. “It’s like a hatchet job.”) But, virus or no, that didn’t stop the Siparia MP from delivering a clearly-articulated, well-analysed critique of the Government’s motion.

Perhaps in gender solidarity, she started off by expressing sympathy for the task given to Robinson-Regis. But Kamla still didn’t give way when Robinson-Regis tried to protest Kamla’s assertion that Camille didn’t believe her own presentation. Kamla went many years back in PNM history to make her point, a debating ploy which in Parliament is usually long on rhetoric and short on substance. But she demonstrated that the PNM had always resisted the introduction of Integrity Legislation, and even when forced by public pressure to do so in 1976, after the 1970 riots and the Wooding Commission’s recommendation, never gave the Act teeth. It was left to the UNC administration to expand the Act in 2000 (though of course Kamla did not say that there was also political pressure on her party’s part to do so, though she did obliquely refer to the scandals under the UNC’s term in government as “trumped up charges”). She also listed some of over 50 corruption scandals, from National Housing to the gas station racket to the National Stadium to the DC-9 bribes, which had occurred under the PNM regime between 1956 and 1976. “That is the track record that we have to keep in mind with respect to this motion,” she said, arguing that it was a typical PNM ploy to prevent integrity legislation. Kamla claimed that the government-dominated Select Committee would simply delay the legislation until Parliament was prorogued and all the instruments lapsed (although Robinson-Regis in her presentation had specified a December 2003 deadline for the committee’s report). She ended by bringing a motion to pass the proposed legislation at once. After Kamla, St Augustine MP Winston Dookeran got up to speak. Dookeran’s vocabulary shows him to be an educated man, but that is more than can be said for his pronunciation and grammar. He also has a slow manner of speech which is guaranteed not to grip. Dookeran’s argument was that the country needed to adopt “a more comprehensive approach” to integrity in public life, since without proper values laws would be ineffective. As he spoke, both the Government and Opposition MPs busied themselves with work or conversed with one another, with only Leader of Government Business Ken Valley and Chief Whip Ganga Singh seeming to pay any attention. But Dookeran wasn’t speaking for anyone in the House. “I thought I should say a few words for the record,” he admitted, as he wound up his 25-minute contribution.