Parliamentary Digest

It took Caroni East MP Ganga Singh 68 minutes to say why there should be a Commission of Inquiry into the Vernon Paul allegations. It took Attorney General John Jeremie just 30 minutes to show that Singh was talking total tata.

It was Private Members Day last Friday in the Lower House and, after a long hiatus of normal business, Singh’s motion was tabled.

It stated that the allegations made by Paul (that PNM agents had planted cocaine and missiles in the water-tank at the home of Opposition Senator Sadiq Baksh) were “of grave concern to all law abiding (sic) and patriotic citizens of Trinidad and Tobago” — the implication being that anyone sceptical about the newspaper report and/or the UNC were neither law-abiding nor patriotic. Singh’s motion called on the House to “affirm its adherence to the rule of law;” “call on the Government for the appointment of an Independent Commission of Inquiry;” and “condemn the Government for its failure to act in a manner consistent with the national and public interest.”

Singh’s first argument was that a Commission of Inquiry into Paul’s allegations would begin “the process of morally cleansing our society.” He leapfrogged from this straight to the Sean Luke murder, speaking of the “gruesome” and “hayneeous” nature of the crime.

Then, apparently determined to take up all his allotted speaking time, he read out in its entirety a newspaper column written by the principal of the St Augustine campus of UWI, Dr Bhoe Tewarie.

Having spent 15 minutes doing that, he returned to the Paul allegations. “And don’t worry, Mr Speaker, I’m not going to call any names,” Singh assured House Speaker Barry Sinanan: an empty promise since it was Singh who had first identified the persons supposedly referred to by pseudonyms in Paul’s story. Singh then went on to read the entire newspaper article in which Paul made his allegations.

Singh noted that Paul had said that the cocaine and missiles had been planted. “That has consistently been the position of the UNC!” said Singh triumphantly, as though that somehow made it true.

He then went through the timeline from the discovery to when the mortar was identified by US law enforcement officials as having been sold to the Venezuelan government.

That slowness of the process, according to Singh, revealed a “conspiracy to cover up this matter existed at the level of the international police, because they only acted on the basis of when the matter was raised in this Parliament.” However, he offered no reason why Interpol should be in cahoots with the Manning administration.

When he rose to reply, Jeremie was quite silky. “The Member for Caroni East is my friend,” he said. “We went to law school together.” Referring to Singh as “my friend” continually through his contribution, Jeremie showed why his enemies should be quaking in their boots.

He noted that Singh had been the one who had called for a Commission of Inquiry into the construction of the Scarborough Hospital and had claimed to have evidence of wrong-doing. When the Government had duly obliged, however, neither Singh nor his Upper House colleague Wade Mark had come before the Commission to give their evidence.

“That is their modus operandi,” Jeremie said: to fling allegations in order to smear people’s characters, find a felon to give false stories, and to call for a Commission of Inquiry while not having any real interest in such.

“We do not intend to fall for this trick another time,” said Jeremie. He asserted that “my friends on the other side are not interested in truth or integrity in public life,” noting that the UNC had called only one CoI in the six years it was in office despite events such as the murder of UNC councillor Hansraj Sumairsingh and the controversial Desalcott project.

Jeremie pointed out that a CoI should only be set up if there was a reasonable case made out and if the normal police procedures were deemed inadequate.

He then went on to highlight the many inconsistencies in Vernon Paul’s story: the most damning being that Paul had initially said that the framing of Baksh had been a UNC plot.

Mere months later, Paul was speaking about a PNM plot. “Where Mr Paul, who is clearly no saint, appears to have had a conversion on the road to Damascus — or perhaps it should be to Caracas — he now comes up with a mind-boggling story about explosives planted in Balisier House,” said Jeremie: but the only slight titter which greeted this very witty interjection showed that most MPs were not familiar with their Bible.

Jeremie also pointed out that Paul once claimed to be the brother of Police Commissioner Trevor Paul. The unbelievable sum Paul claimed had been paid for the supposed exercise — US$100 million — was also highlighted to demonstrate Paul’s unreliability.

When Jeremie finished, it was Tabaquite MP Adesh Nanan’’s turn to speak. Even a good speaker would have been hard put to refute Jeremie, but since Nanan’s speech consisted mostly of reading out lists of embassies and consulates he had written about the Vernon Paul allegations, all he succeeded in doing was proving Jeremie’s point about the shamelessness of the UNC politicians.