By Sue-Ann Wayow
OPPOSITION Senator Wade Mark will be sent to the Privileges Committee of the Senate for statements he made concerning chairman of the National Insurance Board (NIB) Patrick Ferreira.
This was the ruling of Senate President Christine Kangaloo on Tuesday.
Kangaloo gave a chronology of events leading up to the ruling.
On February 22, Minister of Agriculture, Land and Fisheries Clarence Rambharat asked that Mark be sent to the Privileges Committee.
He submitted that Mark committed contempt of the Senate on the grounds that he deliberately and wilfully misled the Senate and he grossly and recklessly abused the privilege of freedom of speech.
On Tuesday Kangaloo stated, “My role as the Presiding Officer of the Senate is to make a decision on whether a prima facie case has been made, and if so, refer the matter to the Committee of Privileges of the Senate. Therefore, I am simply required to consider whether these submissions of the Minister of Agriculture point to a reasonable possibility that contempt has occurred…. I, therefore, rule that there is a prima facie case to support a question of privilege requiring further investigation by the Committee of Privileges.”
On February 15, Mark raised a Matter on the Motion for the Adjournment of the Senate, namely: “The need for the Government to explain its decision to appoint a nominee of the Government to the National Insurance Board as the Chairman of said board which is contrary to the National Insurance Act.” Mark began by citing an article from the Guardian Newspaper dated June 2011.
Repeating Mark’s statement, Kangaloo read: “Where an alarm bell was raised about the Chief Executive of CIC Insurance Brokers, one Patrick Ferreira. The issue at the centre of this was a breach of the Insurance Act by this particular individual which eventually saw him leaving the actual place of employment… This gentleman was debarred literally by the Central Bank, right, as managing director of the Consolidated Insurance Company Limited.”
Finance Minister Colm Imbert in response stated he did not believe Mark’s statements and that an investigation will be conducted.
In making his quest for Mark to be sent to Privileges Committee, Rambharat said, “Based on enquiry made to the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago, the bank has advised that no notice disbarring Patrick Ferreira or disqualifying him from holding any position in the insurance industry has been issued… Further…the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago has advised a determination of culpability against Patrick Ferreira for breaching the Insurance Act has not been issued.”
In making her ruling, Kangaloo said that she carefully reviewed the matter by taking note of the matter raised by Rambharat, the Hansard of both Mark and Imbert and the newspaper article referenced by both.
And referring to the newspaper article, she said, “One of the available reasonable conclusions in all of the circumstances might be that the newspaper article does not appear to contain support for the statements made by Senator Mark. For example, one of the available reasonable conclusions might be that the article does not expressly state that the individual in question was debarred literally by the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago … as Managing Director of the Consolidated Insurance Company Limited, and was disqualified by the Central Bank from holding any position in the insurance industry.”
