Speaker says may call in police over missing Hansards

Speaker of the National Assembly, Raphael Trotman says he may call in the Police to investigate whether there was any intentional removal or destruction of the Hansards and transcripts as he continues his probe and efforts to reconstruct missing PNC-era parliamentary records.

Former Minister of Finance, Carl Greenidge some months ago tabled a motion in the National Assembly seeking to have the Speaker investigate the period of the missing Hansards from 1985 to 1992, the same period during which he served as finance minister under the PNC administration.

Carl Greenidge

Greenidge had brought the motion to the National Assembly in response to the many criticisms he faced over his stewardship of the country’s economy during those years.

The second resolve clause of Greenidge’s motion called on the Speaker to institute an enquiry into the said disappearance or destruction of those records and to report the findings to the National Assembly within one month after the tabling of the motion.

As a result of the investigation, the Speaker concluded that the missing transcripts of Hansard chronicling parliamentary sittings for the years 1985-1992 were probably damaged as a consequence of a leaky roof, which allowed water to soak stored documentation.

Speaking to Stabroek News last week, Trotman said that he is continuing to press for answers and if a planned meeting with some key persons does not yield the desired results, then the police will be called in.

He said that he is also trying to have old Members of Parliament bring in whatever copies of transcripts they have of that period.

“As I said, being given one month by the National Assembly to have a finding and to report I tried my best to do that. But in no way am I satisfied that I uncovered all that I could have uncovered.

We are still calling on old MPs to see whether they have transcripts to being them. I have no inquisitorial powers. I can’t summon, lock up or whatever. However, I will meet with Mr. Greenidge and I may, if I believe after speaking to him it is warranted, ask for a police investigation,” he said.

“It will just be an investigation to see whether or not any crime or anything deliberate [led to the destruction of the transcripts],” he said. “I see [former Speaker of the National Assembly Ralph Ramkarran] corroborated what the Clerk of the National Assembly [Sherlock Isaacs] said about water damage,” he said. “For me, I think we need to pursue and find out the truth. I don’t intend to make it a witch-hunt, I am interested more in discovering the truth than engaging in any witch-hunt, because I believe the truth will take us in the direction that we want to go,” he said.

“As Speaker, I will use whatever is available in terms of evidence. I am not about to go fabricating [evidence] or using emotive reasoning to come up with findings,” Trotman said.

The Speaker was asked about the possibility of reconstructing the Hansards using duplicates and copies that would have been sent to MPs for correction. “We are not even finding those…there is nothing…what you had are these things typed up on onion-skin paper. Those were then bundled and then stored. I was not around in those days but I will continue pursuing this as far as possible. We are trying to get people like [former Hansard editor] Eileen Cox to come to a meeting,” he said.

Trotman is adamant that no such loss of parliamentary records occurs ever again. “Like I said in my report, I am equally passionate about protecting what we have now to ensure that nothing like this ever happens again.

There will be multiple sources of storage, electronically and otherwise,” he said.

“Since I went into Parliament in 1997 we were getting then regular copies of the Hansard.

They were not always timely but they came,” he said.

Trotman conducted interviews with Sherlock Isaacs, Clerk of the National Assembly, Frank Narain, former Clerk of the National Assembly, Maurice Henry,  former Deputy Clerk of the National Assembly and Allison Connelly of the Hansard Department.

“Research has revealed that for the period in issue, there were 192 sittings dated [January 18, 1985] to [August 28, 1992], which covered the 4th and 5th Parliaments. Of these 192, the Clerk advises that 50 transcripts of part of the proceedings are available in the library,” he said in his report.

Greenidge said that he remains unconvinced that all was done to save whenever was left of the documents that had been soaked with water from the leaky roof.