Hochoy claims presiding officer biased

Minority Leader in the Tobago House of Assembly (THA), Hochoy Charles, leader of the Democratic Action Congress (DAC), has accused THA Presiding Officer Ann Mitchell-Gift of being partisan in her rulings in favour of the ruling PNM majority in the House. Charles also declared that Mitchell-Gift was incompetent in her capacity as presiding officer. “The presiding officer doesn’t know what she is doing, and that’s the problem!” he charged, breaking out in uncontrollable laughter. He made the remark after Thursday’s regular monthly plenary sitting of the Assembly ended in uproar when a motion he had tabled was ruled “out of order” by the Presiding Officer.

Charles added, “The presiding officer really and truly needs to update herself on what’s happening in Parliament and parliamentary bodies all over the world. She doesn’t know, she is learning, and, being a woman, we try our best because sometimes we don’t want to offend; and we try to get her to go in the office and chat and so on, and say ‘look, this thing not so. “But I think that she is partisan, you could quote me on that, you know,” he told Newsday. “She is directed by the Leader of Executive Council Business (Hilton Sandy),” Charles declared.