Senators concerned about dead voters

INDEPENDENT SENATOR Prof Ramesh Deosaran yesterday expressed concern that the current system for registering births and deaths in Trinidad and Tobago could still be manipulated for political purposes — especially to rig future general elections in TT. Speaking during debate in the Senate on legislation to amend the Births and Deaths Registration Act, Deosaran said “numerous offences have been caused by inefficiencies in the system” over the years and this problem has not been properly addressed by successive PNM, NAR and UNC governments. “Security is in limbo,” he stated bluntly. The senator advised Legal Affairs Minister Danny Montano to heed his advice and set up a task force within his ministry to carefully examine the way births and deaths are registered and correct any deficiencies in the system.

Deosaran lamented that it was a feature of governments over the years to make laws at one level but have “nothing at the ground level” to ensure that the laws are effective. However Senate Opposition Leader Wade Mark and UNC Senator Jennifer Jones-Kernahan were less charitable in their contributions on the legislation. Mark alleged that Prime Minister Patrick Manning had a hidden political agenda when he announced in 2002 that citizens would receive free birth certificates. Jones-Kernahan claimed that there were cases of persons having different pieces of identification and this opened the door to fraud and other offences. However when pressed by National Security Minister Martin Joseph to verify her claims, the UNC senator declined to do so.