A war of words has erupt­ed be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion af­ter a dra­mat­ic walk­out in Par­lia­ment over a mo­tion tar­get­ing two Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors, fur­ther deep­en­ing ten­sions in­side the leg­is­la­ture.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of flee­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty and be­ing con­trolled by what she de­scribed as “elite fi­nanciers”, while the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in­sist­ed it was forced to with­draw from what it called an un­fair and abu­sive de­bate.

The con­fronta­tion un­fold­ed fol­low­ing a de­bate on a mo­tion to adopt a re­port of the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC) on the con­duct of a mem­ber.