Parliament: Professional and partisan

The most professional people in Parliament are not the politicians, but the Parliamentary staff. During Opposition MP Gerald Yetming’s contribution on Friday, one of the curtains behind Speaker Barry Sinanan fell to the floor. As soon as the tea break was called at 4.35, two men came in and put it back up, while the head technician did some quick repairs on one malfunctioning microphone. Even the Chamber’s housekeepers are quite efficient in the way they replace the MPs’ glasses of cold water, emptying the coasters and wiping the tabletop. Most professional of all are Chief Clerk Jacquie Sampson-Jacent and her assistant Neil Jagessar.  Both always look very finished in appearance, but never uptight. Jacent’s somewhat impish smile contrasts with the sober dark skirt suits she favours, while Jagessar, who is always in jacket-and-tie, occasionally surprises with the latter accoutrement, like the one with red and blue planets that he wore last Friday. And, apart from the smooth manner in which they perform their duties, Jacent and Jagessar have an ease with each other that is the essence of a truly professional relationship.

But that customary relaxation was not as evident on Friday, perhaps because of the topic being hotly debated on that bleak afternoon: racism. It was Private Members’ Day in the Lower House, and St Joseph MP Gerald Yetming had filed a motion, inspired by Keith Rowley’s recent defence of a government policy document which singled out Afro-Trinidadian males between 17 and 25 for favoured enrolment at the COSTAATT, to eliminate all forms of discrimination. And here was the first difference between the requirements of normal professionalism and the kind of professionalism which politicians have to follow: the Opposition chose a person of Chinese descent to pilot this motion while the Government chose a person of European descent. Clearly, both parties hoped to ease the perception of being mono-ethnic organisations while this debate — although “debate” turned out to be a strong term — was being aired. Promising not to call names or indulge in personal attacks, Yetming expressed the hope that “the other side would respond logically, with fact, with reasoned argument.” Using COSTAATT, CEPEP, URP and NEDCO as his main evidence, Yetming argued that the PNM administration was racially biased in its distribution of State resources. “Nobody questions that when a party gets into power, a certain amount of patronage is disbursed,” Yetming admitted. His problem was that the PNM was abusing this accepted practice. He did not, however, define the line between acceptance and abuse. As for the COSTAATT recruitment policy, which the Government claimed to have been put in by a technocrat, Yetming asserted that no technocrat would have put in such a measure without Ministerial approval. And he took umbrage at Rowley having said that the UNC always put a racial construction on everything. “Why not racism?” asked Yetming. “What else could it be?” He added, “What he said was a solution had nothing to do with the problem he identified.”

While Yetming spoke, Rowley never looked up, looking quite busy reading and writing. And, when he called Rowley’s name and that of Works Minister Franklyn Khan, Yetming made sure to say he wasn’t being personal. At the beginning of his contribution, Yetming had also said that the purpose of his motion was to stop discussion of racial discrimination being sidelined. “We want to talk about the issue as a main event,” he said. Newly appointed — or demoted —Science, Technology and Tertiary Education Minister Colm Imbert seemed to have taken the boxing metaphor to heart, because he rose in a combative mood to reply to Yetming. Describing Yetming’s contribution as “ridiculous, scandalous, disingenious [sic]”, Imbert cited several studies which showed that Trinidadian males were under-achieving in the education system and, in what he obviously viewed as a coup de grace, waved a World Bank report prepared while the UNC was in power, which stated that Afro-Trinidadian males were more likely than Indo- or mixed Trinidadians to fail in schools. It was at this point that Rowley gave the first sign that he was paying attention to the proceedings. “Who? Who?” he asked, rhetorically and loudly. “Afro-Trinidadian males,” Imbert dutifully repeated, flourishing the World Bank Report on Youth and Social Development. It would be wrong to say that Imbert abandoned the logic, fact, and reason that Yetming had called for, because he never cleaved to these criteria to start with. “This is a UNC document,” he asserted.

“It’s a World Bank document,” Chief Whip Ganga Singh pointed out. “Don’t try that!” was Imbert’s response. For the rest of his contribution his argument went like this: the World Bank Report is a UNC document which shows that the UNC knew that Afro-Trinidadian youths were at risk and COSTAATT was created to recruit those groups which needed special help. Ergo, it was the UNC’s policy to target Afro-Trinidadian youths between 17 and 25. “They are the greatest hypocrites,” concluded Imbert, adding. “I endorse the policy that we should target at risk groups in the society.” Since Imbert seemed to be justifying the policy, Opposition MP Subhash Panday asked, “So it wasn’t an error then?” Imbert did not answer. Meanwhile, although Jacent and Jagessar are normally both present throughout the session, it was only one or the other there as the afternoon wore on. Perhaps there was other work to do elsewhere in Parliament.