Caption: Minister of Finance Davendranath Tancoo. Photo: T&T Parliament
By Alicia Chamely
FINANCE Minister Devendranath Tancoo plans on taking his predecessor and Member for Diego Martin North East Colm Imbert to the Privileges Committee.
In his windup contribution in the House of Representatives on Friday at the Red House, Port of Spain, Tancoo said he would be seeking to take Imbert to the Privileges Committee for deliberately being dishonest during the debate regarding a civil appeal court matter between Imbert and former assistant commissioner of the Board of Inland Revenue (BIR) Rohonie Ramkission.
During his contribution to the Repeal of the Trinidad and Tobago Revenue Authority, Minister in the Ministry of Public Utilities Clyde Elder made reference to a 2022 case brought against Imbert by Ramkission.
Ramkission had won a case against Imbert, where she accused him of unfairly denying her a recommendation to be promoted to Commissioner. Imbert went on to file an appeal.
Imbert called on Standing Order 49, indicating to Speaker of the House Jagdeo Singh that the matter was in the Court of Appeal and it was incorrect for Elder to reference the case.
In his final contribution, Tancoo said, “We had a very unfortunate situation during this debate, and I think it must be recorded for Hansard. We had an Opposition member stand up and insist on a standing order, insist that a matter was sub judice, insist that another member speaking could not continue on the vein on which he was speaking because an appeal was still before the court.”
Tancoo then revealed that he received a court ruling dated February 24, 2025, that showed Imbert’s appeal was struck out and therefore no longer before the court.
He said, “The issues there is the Member for Diego Martin North East, must have known or should have known that the appeal was thrown out.”
Tancoo added, “And yet he came here to misrepresent, to mislead the parliament and the population by extension.”
He said, “That is an unfortunate stain if not treated by this parliament.”
Tancoo directed Imbert, saying, “Take caution sir, we will be filing a privilege motion against that action, because we must not allow that kind of mischief to continue.”
