Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
caribbeannetnews.com

Trinidad Senate president calls for full-time members of parliament

Thursday, January 11, 2007

by: Stephen Cummings
Caribbean Net News Trinidad and Tobago Correspondent
Email: stephen@caribbeannetnews.com

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad: The President of Trinidad and Tobago's Senate, Dr Linda Baboolal, has spoken out in favour of making all Members of Parliament in Trinidad and Tobago full-time.

Currently some members are serving part time.

"I feel that, if you are a Member of Parliament, you should be able to devote your time to the work of Parliament. And that includes Government and Opposition. Everybody should be full-time," Baboolal stated on Wednesday as she spoke at the Commonwealth Caribbean Parliamentary Workshop.

The workshop was hosted by The Constitutional Affairs and Parliamentary Studies Unit of The University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus, Trinidad.

Baboolal was a panelist at the workshop's opening panel discussion, entitled "Parliamentary Practice and Procedure Presiding Officers' Roundtable".

The panel also included three House Speakers from across the region: Barendra Sinanan, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Trinidad and Tobago; Alix Boyd-Knights, Speaker of the House of Assembly of Dominica; and Michael Peart, Speaker of the House of Representatives of Jamaica. Two subsequent sessions focused on Gender and Parliamentary Representation and Parliament in the Age of Information and Communication Technology.

Asked whether she thought there was an ethical concern in having Members of Parliament who also worked elsewhere, Baboolal responded, "That's a difficult thing to say. Right now, [that issue] has been raised concerning independent senators but the fact remains that they have to work because their salary, certainly as a Senator, is not going to support them and their family. It's really just a stipend," she added

The CAPSU workshop, which aims to bring together the expertise and experience of a number of regional and international scholars from Canada, Dominica, Ghana, Jamaica, UK, was launched on Wedndeday with an Opening Ceremony chaired by Dr Hamid Ghany, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and CAPSU Coordinator.

Other speakers at the event launch were Dr Bhoendradatt Tewarie, UWI Pro Vice Chancellor and St Augustine Campus Principal, Prof. Onwubiko Agozino, Acting Head, UWI Department of Behavioural Sciences and Senator Donald Oliver, QC, Chairman of the Legal and Constitutional Committee of the Senate, Parliament of Canada.

Senator Oliver, the morning's feature speaker, discoursed at length on practical methods for increasing transparency and accountability of members of parliament: "Intimately connected to accountability is transparency, which is the sustaining light of accountability.

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