TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO, May 24 - The Minister of Finance, Hon. Colm Imbert, MP, has taken note of misleading and false statements made by UNC Senator Wade Mark in the Senate today where he repeatedly and erroneously claimed that the 2021 Report of the National Insurance Board (NIB) was laid in Parliament by the Minister two months after the expiry of the 3-month statutory deadline for laying the Report.

This kind of behaviour is typical of Senator Mark.

Firstly, in complete ignorance or avoidance of the fact that the 2021 NIB Report was laid in Parliament by the Minister of Finance on February 11, 2022, three months ago, Senator Mark asked the Minister today to state when the Report would be laid.

When corrected and being reminded that the Report was laid three months ago, he then proceeded to falsely allege that the laying of the Report was late and demanded to know the reason why.

When that didn’t work, he proceeded to ask when did the Minister receive the 2021 Report from the NIB, after falsely alleging that the Minister had received the Report in November 2021.

The reality is that it is a matter of public record that the 2021 Report of the NIB was received by the Minister of Finance on January 2022 and laid in the Parliament in February 2022, less than two months after he received it, and long before the expiry of the 3-month statutory deadline. These facts were published widely in the media, and in February 2022, there was significant public commentary on the contents of the 2021 
Report of the NIB.

It is therefore shameful that Senator Mark, as is often the case where he is concerned, would seek to mislead the public in this way and waste Parliamentary time, in a cheap and ill-advised, failed attempt to score political points.