THE TEACUP THAT COST $5M

The teacup was allegedly thrown at Fyzabad MP Chandresh Sharma in an altercation with Housing Minister Dr Keith Rowley.

One of the many chapters in the affair — a private lawsuit initiated by Sharma — was concluded in the court last Monday when it was dismissed following his failure to appear in court. Sharma had sued Rowley for physical assault, obscene language and throwing of missiles.

Sharma has also sued the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Commissioner of Police for failure to prosecute the PNM MP for assault.

Both cases were thrown out at the level of the High Court. Sharma has since appealed.

His request to have the case heard urgently was turned down by the Appeal Court, which would now hear the matter in the normal course of time. The State retained Senior Counsel in all of these matters.

Unimpeachable sources said yesterday that the State would be moving to recover its costs from the Fyzabad MP.

Sharma has been represented by a battery of lawyers, most of whom are high-ranking members of the Opposition UNC, including Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Carol Cuffie-Dowlat.

The tearoom incident has also cost the UNC very dearly, causing it to lose two of its parliamentary representatives — Pointe-a-Pierre MP Gillian Lucky and San Juan/Barataria Mp Fuad Khan.

The affair also had costs for Sharma, having led (after he refused to apologise to Parliament for misleading it and after he refused to obey the Speaker’s ruling) to his suspension from Parliament and to his being deprived of his parliamentary salary for four months.

The teacup affair was also the proximate cause of UNC leader Basdeo Panday’s widely perceived injudicious remark that politics had a morality of its own.

The teacup affair consumed hours and hours of the time of the Privileges Committee, which was mandated to do a "full investigation and report." It required parliament staff to work late in the evenings, incurring not only time but overtime costs.

Furthermore, comments heard in the public domain clearly indicated that the teacup incident triggered a loss of respect for Parliament and parliamentarians generally. Sources wondered yesterday where the saga would end? How many more millions of taxpayers’ funds will it consume and what more damage could this broken teacup do?