Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has pushed back against Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, say­ing she has no moral au­thor­i­ty to ad­vise her on in­ter­nal par­ty mat­ters, as she de­fend­ed her de­ci­sion to stage a walk­out from Par­lia­ment on Fri­day.

In a state­ment, Beck­les said she would not be pres­sured in­to mak­ing a de­ci­sion re­gard­ing Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates, who ten­dered her res­ig­na­tion af­ter ad­mit­ting to edit­ing a wit­ness state­ment pre­pared by for­mer health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh.

The al­tered state­ment had been sub­mit­ted to the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC), which has been ex­am­in­ing the State’s ac­qui­si­tion of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals amid al­le­ga­tions of nepo­tism linked to the grant­i­ng of spe­cial im­port per­mits dur­ing Deyals­ingh’s tenure.