Indian Romeo

Head of the Estate Management Business Development (EMBD) Company Uthara Rao, who has a “weakness for sweetness,” has been sexually harassing a number of  women employed at the company, UNC Senator Wade Mark charged in the Senate yesterday. Mark said Rao seemed to be linked to Prime Minister Patrick Manning, because he “goes around boasting all over the place that he and Patrick are very close and that he could do anything and nobody could touch him.”

Mark was speaking on the Caroni Lands Vesting Bill aimed at facilitating the transfer of 80,000 acres of lands from Caroni and Orange Grove to the State. The bill was piloted by Minister in the Ministry of Finance, Christine Sahadeo. Noting that the EMBD would be managing the distribution of this land, Mark asked in disbelief: “How can we support legislation which we are going to put into the hands of a stranger? Imagine this land belongs to you and I, we laboured, we toiled, we struggled and we put 80,000 acres of lands into the hands of the foreigner who is abusing our women?” Quoting from the legislation, he added: “One of the functions this man would have is to manage, to rent, to assign, to exchange, lease land.”

“And if he has a tendency, and a weakness for sweetness, and he intends to harass people in the way that we have been told, it is quite possible that we would have our land being exchanged for sexual favours,” Mark said. He called for the resignation of “this Indian expatriate. We want him out of the country,” Mark said, adding that he did not think he (Rao) was capable of administering the affairs of Caroni. “We call for his removal!” he said. Mark said the Fraud Squad should also be called in to examine the company because there were “too many irregularities” under the “watch of this stranger.” Mark said nine secretaries had been changed by Rao in less than one year. “You know why, Madame President? Every one that comes in wants sexual favours,” he said. Attorney General John Jeremie protested, saying that the gentleman was not in the chamber (to defend himself) and that Mark was “entirely out of order.”

“What is out of order? I am asking you to investigate it!” Mark snapped. When Jeremie continued to object, Mark thundered: “You should resign. You should resign, boy! You are part of a conspiracy to remove the Chief Justice!” Even after  Senate President Linda Baboolal rose, Mark continued: “He should go! Resign!” Baboolal urged Mark to be careful. Mark, a former trade unionist, said he was passionate about the issue because he defended workers. “And I take strong objection to any worker being aggressed, particularly women and particularly by a stranger,” he said. Even worse, Mark lamented, all this was brought to the attention of the Minister in the Ministry of Finance, Christine Sahadeo, who had done nothing about it. “Is the minister defending sexual harassment against women?” he asked.

At this point, Montano said no one on the PNM bench would sanction that kind of behaviour. He added, however, that the Senate President had already indicated that this matter was sub judice (because it was before the Industrial Court). “I am going to allow no stranger into my house to rule me. I am an independent individual,” Mark declared. Mark said the Banking, Insurance and General Workers Union was  representing a worker at the Industrial Court for sexual harassment by “this individual.” He said there were five other cases which had been brought to the union’s attention. Mark said the workers had detailed their abuses “by this alien from India,” in correspondence sent to Sahadeo.

“This foreigner comes to this country and has no respect from the Trinidadian and Tobagonian, particularly the women of this country,” Mark said. Mark called on the Auditor General to conduct a forensic audit into the accounts of the “corrupt organisation” called the Estate Management Business Development Company. He said the land should have been distributed in a transparent way which should have involved all the stakeholders, including the Opposition and the people of the nation. Noting that the country had just gone through Easter, Mark said the Caroni Vesting Bill completed the “crucifixion” of an  industry to which all of our ancestors contributed.

He said the PNM regime was “totally intoxicated” with power and that all the flowery language “dripping” from the lips of Sahadeo could not wipe away “the ripples of tears” that the people of Trinidad and Tobago — particularly the people of Central and South — had shed as a result of Government’s flawed policies. He said Sahadeo, an accountant, and the Government had taken a “balance sheet approach” to the whole issue. “All we are hearing from them is ‘Fire Sale,’ ‘Garage Sale’ (on Caroni Lands). ‘They going to audit this next week and next month’,” he said, adding that there was no plan for Caroni. He said the Bill represented “a gigantic conspiracy in mass deception by a dangerous, vicious and Mugabe-type administration which was seeking to impose a new form of colonialism on this country,” “seizing” large acreages of land from Caroni and Orange Grove. Mark  warned the  Government that wars had been fought, revolutions had occurred and blood spilled in many jurisdictions over the issue of land.