By SEAN DOUGLAS Tuesday, March 18 2008

FORMER Independent Sena-tor Mary King has condemned Government’s reduction in the number of Joint Select Com-mittees (JSCs) from three to two committees, which she said are too few, to do the work of scrutinising the action of all public bodies.

King chaired one of three departmental JSCs in the last Eight Parliament which had oversight over bodies such as the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Energy and Energy Industries.

She said two committees were simply inadequate to monitor all Government Ministries, Service Commissions, Municipal Bodies, Statutory Bodies and State Enterprises.

Hitting the Government, she said, “They don’t want the committees to work. You can’t have that wide range of groups listed under two joint select committees” King also complained that the Government had shared out the two committees’ workload unequally.

“They have divided them in a very skewed way. The municipal corporations and service commissions are very small in work, relative to the Ministries and State Enterprises”.

She predicted that the JSC responsible for Ministries would not be able to fulfil its role.

King also disagreed with the Government’s stated intention to put governmental back-bencher Pennelope Beckles, to chair the committees, replacing the Inde-pendent Senators who previously served as chairmen.

“How can they possibly oversee their own Government?” She took issue with Manning’s claim that compared to the UK Parliament, he could spare few Government MPs to sit on committees because most of them were also busy Ministers.

She said such Ministers actually have less work to do than even the municipal figure of the Lord Mayor of London.

King said one of the most important roles of Parliament is the oversight of the National Budget, and that Manning should have both bright people in Cabinet and adequate MPs to staff the back- benches.

“A small, competent Cabinet could do all the work we need in Trinidad and Tobago. They (Government) are playing games.”

Former Independent Senator Parvatee Anmolsingh-Mahabir, who had also chaired a JSC, said her committee had worked very hard hosting about 66 meetings. She wished the new committees success, and regarding their reduction, said, “If the Prime Minister in his wisdom feels they should be reduced, so be it”.

Senate Opposition Leader Wade Mark said the Govern-ment’s reduction of the joint select committees (JSCs) from three to two bodies last Friday in the House of Representatives was part of a conspiracy to “lock down” Parliament.

He said in the past six years, the ruling PNM had made many efforts to subvert and contaminate independent institutions set up under the TT Constitution and to establish autocratic rule.