Independent Senator Vieira fires back at PM

Akash Sama­roo

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira says it will take “a lot more than holy wa­ter and mantras” to get him to sup­port the Gov­ern­ment’s Pro­cure­ment Bill, as he fired back at Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar by turn­ing her de­scrip­tion of in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors as “sa­tan­ic” and “de­mon­ic” back on the Gov­ern­ment dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Sen­ate de­bate.

Vieira, who raised sev­er­al con­cerns about the pro­posed changes to the coun­try’s pro­cure­ment frame­work, al­so re­vealed he de­lib­er­ate­ly de­cid­ed against prepar­ing amend­ments to the bill be­cause of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­c­la­ra­tion that her Gov­ern­ment would no longer en­ter­tain amend­ments from the in­de­pen­dent bench.