Erstwhile Attorney General Glenda Morean was fairly entertaining
when she was in the Senate, though not always by design. But
since she became High Commissioner to London she’s positively
a celebrity, with parliamentarians eager to hear about every
move she makes.
Recently the House and the nation marvelled at the fantastic
cost of repairs and improvements to Ms Morean’s official
residence. Last Tuesday the senators gasped at the details
of the presentation of Her Excellency’s credentials,
which cost £6,628 (close to $80,000), and subsequent
“ceremonial days” which set back the taxpayer another
£4,782.
In replying to questions on the cost of these shindigs, Foreign
Affairs Minister Knowlson Gift revealed that the High Commissioner
was required to call on the Queen in a horse-drawn carriage.
Her escorts were outfitted in morning dress; Her Excellency,
of course, also had to be “most formally attired,”
though the cost of her outfit was not itemised.
The ceremonial days come at bargain rates compared to the
presentation of credentials and the vin d’honneur—which
must be how they say “big bram” in diplomatic circles—that
followed. Why, Commonwealth Day cost the country a mere £24,
the cost of tickets for a tea party thrown by the Commonwealth
Secretariat. For Independence Day we spent a mere £50
on drinks—juice, water and coffee.
The biggest celebrations were for Emancipation, when Glenda—sorry,
Her Excellency—splashed out, inter alia, £150 to
pay “S Figaro, ancient drummer” for his efforts.
A similar amount went to the mysterious “Alberto,”
though no light was shed on what services Alberto offered
in return.
The bill that followed dealt with another obscure figure,
but one who roused stronger feelings—and not merriment,
but rage. It was, improbably, a would-be Commissioner of State
Lands.
The fury that engulfed the Senate was unwittingly provoked
by Agriculture Minister Jarrette Narine, who brought a very
minor bill to validate acts carried out by the Director of
Surveys between June and October last year. If anything, it
seemed even less important than the cost of Glenda’s
juice and frocks.
But the bill covered at best a series of bureaucratic bungles,
and at worst a conspiracy to hand out $100 million of state
lands to the PNM’s friends and hangers-on.
Since 1980 the Director of Surveys has done the work of Commissioner
of State Lands, a post created in 1979 but never filled. These
days, however, the work is too much for one person, Mr Narine
said nonchalantly, what with “increased technical and
administrative activity with regard to Caroni land.”
So the appointment of a commissioner was approved last June.
But no one told the Director of Surveys, said Mr Narine, and
he continued to exercise powers that were no longer rightfully
his. The bill was therefore needed to validate what he had
done until his error was spotted by a Permanent Secretary
in October.
Up to this point, the story was a mere comedy of errors. But
in the hands of Senate opposition leader Wade Mark, it took
on a sinister air.
Why had the regime chosen to separate the functions of the
director and the commissioner now?
Because there were 77,000 acres of Caroni lands to be given
out, and the commissioner was going to be in the back pocket
of the PNM Cabinet—for the act said he must take any
directions given to him by the minister. (He would be, Mr
Mark rephrased it later, a “footsie” of the Government.)
The PNM regime manipulated all the critical institutions of
the country in order to have its way, as he was about to prove.
And here Mr Mark tried to quote a Sunday Guardian story and
all hell broke loose.
The story was about the judicial review sought by assistant
Commissioner of Valuations Mr Ganga Persad Kissoon of the
Public Service Commission’s decision to appoint someone
else Commissioner of State Lands, after the Prime Minister
objected to Mr Kissoon’s getting the job.
The prospect of Mr Mark’s reading out the story had PNM
senator Danny Montano calling for Mr Mark to be put out of
the Senate, and UNC senator Robin Montano yelling “Donkey,
keep quiet!” at government senator Rennie Dumas.
After a shouting match, the session was suspended for half
an hour while Vice President Rawle Titus sought advice. In
the end he let Mr Mark quote the story once he did not add
his own interpretations, and the Government more or less left
Mr Mark alone while he did so.
Mr Mark quoted the story to his heart’s content, then
turned to lamenting the cost of lettuce ($5 a head).
But the Government surely didn’t get on bad just to stop
the reading of a story that had already been published weeks
before, but to pre-empt what they thought Mr Mark might say
next.
What was more interesting, then, was what wasn’t said—just
as, in accounting for the presentation of Her Excellency’s
credentials, Mr Gift omitted to say how much she paid the
horse.
