Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates’ po­lit­i­cal fu­ture re­mains un­cer­tain af­ter Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les al­lowed Par­lia­ment to be pro­rogued with­out pub­licly re­veal­ing whether she had ac­cept­ed the sen­a­tor’s res­ig­na­tion.

John-Bates re­signed on May 1 af­ter ad­mit­ting re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for edit­ing a wit­ness state­ment that was lat­er sub­mit­ted to a par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee on which she served.

The con­tro­ver­sy emerged af­ter it was re­vealed both John-Bates and Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi made ed­its to the doc­u­ment penned by for­mer health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh be­fore it was pre­sent­ed to the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC). The PAAC was con­duct­ing a pub­lic in­quiry in­to the state’s ac­qui­si­tion of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and the Min­istry of Health’s drug pro­cure­ment prac­tices. Al-Rawi has main­tained that his in­volve­ment stemmed from his role as Deyals­ingh’s at­tor­ney.