Saith is fooling no one

Earlier this week, the ministry issued a release denying the Law Lords’ ruling that the Government had demonstrated bias against the Maha Sabha and misled the Court of Appeal.

Instead, in typical fashion, the ministry attempted to lay blame on the previous administration and public servants. A recommendation made in December 2000, said the release, “was not acted upon by the previous government” and “the state of record-keeping in the telecommunications division was precarious at best.”

The ministry’s statement, however, is notable for what it does not say.

Claiming that the granting of the licence was held up because the Maha Sabha did not supply requested information, the ministry omits the fact that the Privy Council held such requests to be entirely unreasonable.

The ministry also does not explain how it was able to move with such dispatch on the application from Citadel Ltd, in a far more complex scenario, which was the catalyst for the Maha Sabha’s legal action.

And, most damning of all, the ministry inevitably leaves out the fact that, even after the ruling by the High Court and the Court of Appeal in favour of the Maha Sabha, the Government still did not facilitate the application.

This makes especially hollow the ministry’s claim that “The Government has at all times been, and remains, committed to the rule of law and the principle of fairness and transparency in all of its affairs.”

If this is so, why did Prime Minister Patrick Manning, as the main representative of the Government, not let the Marlene Coudray affair go forward, if he had indeed not abused the authority of his office?

Surely, if the Prime Minister had indeed been dealing fairly with Ms Coudray in trying to get her transferred out of the San Fernando City Corporation, and surely if he had not attempted to breach the law, transparency dictated that the case should have been aired.

And then there is the Devant Maharaj matter, in which the court found that the Prime Minister had acted with bias and overstepped his authority in blocking Mr Maharaj’s promotion within the National Lotteries Control Board.

More recently, the court also threw out a counter-allegation made by the NLCB against Mr Maharaj in respect to religious slurs he had allegedly made at a company function. The Law Lords, without knowing of these matters, still saw bias, deception, and illegality in the Government’s action in the Maha Sabha case.

So when the ministry claims that “To impute any bias to the action of the State in the context of this matter is therefore wholly unfounded,” they are denying facts and common sense — and, in so doing, solidifying the impression that the Government is indeed biased and deceptive.

What Information Minister Lenny Saith and Prime Minister Manning apparently fail to realise is that this is a situation where damage control must come through action, not words. Citadel Ltd got its application approved within 14 days. The Government should now try and beat that record.