Denying the claim that he was axed as a Member of Parliament (MP) because of extended absences, former PNCR executive James McAllister said he was shut out from parliamentary duties.
He maintained that this treatment was as a result of vindictiveness by PNCR Leader Robert Corbin, who, he claimed, pulled him from parliamentary committees and discontinued inviting him to the party’s parliamentary group, although he was prepared to fully perform his duties. McAllister also said he was demoted to the very last seat in the party line-up. In a strongly-worded statement issued yesterday in reaction to the official PNCR position on his recall, McAllister said: “Robert Corbin’s actions to deny me the opportunity to do parliamentary work, even before the disciplinary committee had made a determination, are clear indication that his actions against me were not premised on the recommendations of the committee. They were motivated by his innate undemocratic style of leadership.”
Last week, the PNCR issued a notice of recall to McAllister and his seat was declared vacant. The move was in keeping with the recommendations of the party’s disciplinary committee, following investigations of misconduct allegedly committed by McAllister while participating in Vincent Alexander’s abortive campaign for party leadership. At the party’s final General Council Meeting for the year on Saturday, Corbin told delegates that McAllister had been absent for nearly a year from parliament. He explained that McAllister had been absent from parliament for the entire half of the year 2007 without any communication to the Representative of the List or the General Secretary of the PNCR. He eventually turned up in Parliament on the last day of the consideration of the estimates of the budget for 2008. He then disappeared from Parliament again without any explanation to the Represen-tative of the List or to the Party. Corbin said McAllister continued to draw his parliamentary salary while working overseas and the party was without representation in the parliament during that period.
But McAllister unreservedly denied the statements. “This cannot be further from the truth,” he said, referring to Corbin’s presentation to the General Council. According to McAllister, the official record would show that he was in parliament on a number of occasions between March and August this year. Thereafter, he said, like a number of other MP’s he left the jurisdiction for the parliamentary recess.
What is more, he called on Corbin to explain his policy towards him between March and August, noting that he removed him from all parliamentary committees and stopped inviting him to meetings of the PNCR parliamentary group. McAllister said he was told that was no longer a part of Corbin’s team and demoted to the last seat in the party’s parliamentary arrangement. McAllister noted that since the last elections, he introduced a number of motions in the National Assembly and was always ready to respond to the call of the party whip, even at short notice, to perform any task. He recalled that during the last parliament he served as the first chairman of the Sectoral Committee on Economic Services and also represented the party with vigour on a number of other parliamentary committees.
