Govt feels the wrath of Kamla’s whip

The words of PNM Ministers Keith Rowley, Colm Imbert, Ken Valley, and Camille Robinson-Regis came back to haunt them yesterday, as UNC MP, Kamla Persad-Bissessar beat PNM members with their own stick. Persad-Bissessar was piloting a motion which criticised the Government for seeking to exempt the Central Bank from the obligation of giving information under the Freedom of Information Act. Government brought the Freedom of Information (Exemption) No 2  after the Maha Sabha had sought to get information from the Central Bank on the role of director Selwyn Cudjoe, the amount of money being spent to bring Cudjoe from the United States to Trinidad every time he had to attend a Board meeting,  the amount of money the bank expended on Emancipation Day celebrations and the persons hired by the Central Bank since Cudjoe’s appointment.

The bank refused to give the information citing the  exemption under the Freedom of Information Act. The Maha Sabha has since challenged it in court and the matter comes up in June, Persad-Bissessar said. Persad-Bissessar noted that Govern-ment brought to the Parliament the Freedom of Information Order specifically  exempting the bank from application of the Freedom of Information Act, after the bank had already used this excuse to deny the Maha Sabha’s request for information. Strangely, the Order which Persad-Bissessar argued was “contrary to transparency, accountability and good goverance,”  was signed on Old Year’s Day by the President.

Persad-Bissessar quoted from the Hansard the contribution of PNM frontliners when the Freedom of Information Bill was passed in April 1999. According to the Hansard report, the PNMites were adamant that there should be no such exemptions. “Who could possibly be against freedom of information? Who? Who?...What this legislation needs is a  thorough overhaul to remove all trap doors, escape hatches, backdoors, shift ladders, other holes, apertures, loopholes and exits where public authorities can escape the responsibility to give information,” Bissessar-Persad said, reading from the Hansard of Imbert, then an Opposition member.  PNM members cracked up as she quoted him and asked: “Why should you come here today using all the backdoors and ladders and loopholes and apertures, to  remove the Central Bank from the legislation?

She  accused Government of hyprocrisy, saying that now that they were in a position to “fix” the Bill, they were adding to the list of exempt public authorities. Saying that this Government was against transparency and openness, Persad-Bissessar said the Central Bank was a public institution and must answer to the public. She wanted to know what Government was afraid of. Cudjoe’s cv, which was proudly posted on the Internet for all to see, indicated that he was versed in literature, she said. Whereas, she added, the Central Bank law required directors to be experts in accounting, finance and banking.

She said the Government was moving against the international trend which was to expand the ambit of information, rather than contract it. The UK and US equivalents of the Central Bank (the Bank of England and the Federal Bank) did not have this exemption, she said and asked what fiscal and monetary policies the Central Bank could be framing which needed to be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. She lamented that Government was eroding a fundamental right of citizens — the right to information.  With respect to the Bajan fishermen, she hoped that when the questions are filed, Government would not bring an Order to exempt itself from answering.