Speaker sends Anil Roberts to privileges committee

Sports Minister Anil Roberts has been sent to the Privileges Committee of Parliament. Speaker Wade Mark made the ruling Friday, noting that although Roberts made an apology to the House, "a prima facie case of contempt has indeed been made out. I so rule and refer this matter to the Committee of Privileges for consideration and report." 

The motion seeking to censure Roberts was filed by the MP for Diego Martin Central, Dr Amery Browne who accused Roberts of misleading the House of Representatives with respect to the recent Nicki Minaj concert which was jointly sponsored by the sports and youth affairs ministry.

Browne claimed:

• that the information conveyed to the House by Roberts were inaccurate
• that when he made the statement on November 26 Roberts knew or at least ought to have known that it was inaccurate
• that Roberts intended to mislead the House

Roberts had initially denied that foul language was used at the concert and in his apology sought to explain the circumstances.

"I had no intention whatever to deliberately mislead this Honourable House," Roberts said a week ago in an attempt to avoid being sent to the committee. "If it is that such impression was created in the minds of Honourable Members, then I humbly apologise for having so structured my statement as to create this unfortunate impression."

Roberts added that if "improper language or use of words were uttered or conveyed" at that concert, he wished to categorically dissociate himself and the Government of Trinidad and Tobago "from that type of behaviour".

The minister said: "Mr Speaker, if my statement, is taken in its entirety, it could be inferred that a reasonable interpretation of what I was attempting to convey, would be that the use of expletives on stage by any artiste would have inevitably led to a shutdown of the Minaj concert.

"Mr Speaker, there having been no shutdown of the concert by the police, one could also infer that no offensive language or vulgar expressions were used to the annoyance of police on duty. It was in that context that my statement was made," he said.

Read the story: Anil makes an apology; tells HOR he never intended to mislead Parliament

On Friday Roberts gave a breakdown of the cost of the concert, confirming that his ministry invested $869,000 as part of the launch of the "localise it". He declined to give information on what other government departments contributed, saying that he could only speak for his ministry.

Breakdown of the ministry’s funding of the show:

• Local advertising - $150,000
• Venue infrastructure - $75,000
• Local fashion show - $60,000
• Local culture (moko jumbies etc) - $26,000
• COTT fees - $32,383
• Local artistes fees - $40,000
• Hilton Trinidad - $60,343
• Nicki Minaj entourage and agent fees - $382,000