Under the House

Leader of Government Business Ken Valley had trouble with “preliminary”; Opposition Leader Kamla Persad Bissessar slurred “infrastructure”; and St Joseph MP Gerry Yetming had difficulty with “legislative”. The verbal idiosyncrasies of Valley and Kamla, who are the most standard English speakers in the Lower House, were also somewhat noticeable that afternoon. Valley said “mor-dern” and made “creditors” sound like “predators”, while Kamla pronounced every word ending in “l” (like “people) as “ul”.

This may have been because of the somewhat technical nature of the Bill under debate: “An Act to revise the law relating to bankruptcy and insolvency; to make provision for corporate and individual insolvency; to provide for the rehabilitation of the insolvent debtor and to create the office of Supervisor of Insolvency”.

But that should not have fazed Valley or Yetming, who actually like debating fiscal issues.

Indeed, Valley started off in fine style, talking about the need for a modern investment policy and emphasising that services and not only goods were part of trade, although the former tended to be forgotten.

He summed up the purposes of the Bill: to provide mechanisms for the consolidation of debt; to give sufficient flexibility to adapt to rapidly changing market conditions; and to provide practical solutions to problems.

He spoke of previous measures to modernise the economy, such as the floating of the dollar, the reduction of the trade deficit, the introduction of the Companies Act and the Venture Capital Act, and the rationalisation of the State companies. In relation to this last, however, Valley did not say whether the Government’s new policy of setting up new State enterprises was therefore irrational.

All this was delivered with enthusiasm and a comprehensive overview of the legislation.

Unfortunately, Valley then started going through various clauses of the Bill and descended to his default drone of delivery. As he spoke, the PNM MPs busied themselves with various documents, the UNC members either chatted or read, and Speaker Barry Sinanan sat expressionlessly with his eyes admirably open.

When Valley finished at 2:30, Kamla, dressed in a baby-blue pants suit, rose to make her maiden speech as Opposition Leader. She congratulated Hamza Rafeek on his appointment as Chief Whip, and the Opposition MPs thumped their desks, including Ganga Singh but not Winston Dookeran. Dookeran’s inanition may not have been significant, however, since he is not a desk-thumping kind of guy. Kamla started off by talking about the nature of the Trinidad and Tobago economy, invoking Lloyd Best’s paradigm of the plantation economy and referring to the “onshore” and “offshore” economy. She noted that the debt to GDP ratio was 41 percent, asking whether this is a ratio we were happy with. She gave way to Prime Minister Patrick Manning, who rose to say that anything under 50 percent was considered acceptable. Kamla went on to speak about a 24 percent rise in food prices, and referred to Russia’s State companies going bankrupt and being sold off for low prices, asking if the same might be done with de facto bankrupt utilities like WASA.

“I just wanted to place in context the state of the economy,” she explained.

That may have been so so, but this was Kamla’s secondary motive. Her primary purpose was todemonstrate her intellectual capabilities. In nearly every interview Kamla has had since being appointed Opposition Leader, she has made sure to mention her recent completion of a Masters in Business Administration (although one newspaper says she still has to finish her thesis). As she spoke, Dookeran sat on the back bench listening expressionlessly. Nor did he rise to speak.

Instead, Yetming rose at 3:16. He observed that the Bill was 209 pages long (perhaps mentioning this because Kamla had said it was 205), saying, “There appears to have been a rush to bring this Bill to Parliament.” Yetming queried why. “There are more important pieces of legislation to rush,” he said, citing crime legislation, revenue stabilisation legislation, and laws to bring credit unions under the Central Bank’s ambit.

“Ironic that in this country with a booming economy there should be a rush to pass bankruptcy and insolvency legislation,” he said. Equally ironic, he added, was the increase in poverty; collapsing infrastructure; deteriorating utilities; protest action by villagers for services; claims of almost full employment but employers complaining they can’t get workers; high oil and gas revenues but a depreciating currency. “So therefore the irony of a Bill like this coming in a rush shouldn’t surprise us,” he concluded.

When Valley rose to respond, he stated bluntly, “The Member is in no position to determine the priority of the Government, adding, “There is no irony. The Government determines its legislative agenda.”

It clearly didn’t occur to Valley, as he wrapped up the session 20 minutes early, that he was admitting that the Government considered bankruptcy a more pressing issue than poverty, infrastructure, basic services and so on.