Dharamlall apologises for provoked “dildo” comment

Last Updated on Thursday, 10 February 2022, 15:14 by Denis Chabrol

Local Government Minister  Nigel Dharamlall early Thursday morning said he was provoked by repeated insults from several opposition parliamentarians, including Sherod Duncan, into making the “dildo” comment, but said he was sorry for those who took umbrage.

The Minister Wednesday night publicly apologised inside and outside the House to those who felt offended. “I’d like to indicate to you that if I had said anything that was misconstrued, that it was not my intention to make those statements to that effect and if there were statements that were unparliamentary on my part  during the course of the interrogations, then I would like to withdraw them as well,” the Minister  told  the House.

“To those offended by my comment I am truly sorry,” he said in a Facebook post. Mr. Dharamlall explained that “my heckle regarding a dildo was aimed at verbal excesses of MP Sherod Duncan.”

When Mr. Dharamlall on Wednesday said “You got to get a dildo. That is what you looking for”, no one from either the government or opposition benches or the House Speaker Manzoor Nadir objected or upbraided the Local Government Minister for his comment.  Minutes later, Mr. Duncan stood up and protested aloud at Mr. Dharamlall’s remark, calling him “nasty” and refusing several requests by the Speaker to

desist and to withdraw from the Chamber. Mr. Nadir then successfully secured a government motion for him to be  suspended from four sittings of the National Assembly.

Mr. Dharamlall, on his Facebook post, said the APNU+AFC legislators are “no angels”. and described an Alliance For Change release as a total  embarrassment.  He identified several opposition lawmakers  including MPs Sherod Duncan, Coretta Mc Donald and Natasha Singh-Lewis who target the government side.  “On many occasions, the MPs on the government side have been ridiculed with some of the most uncouth and slanderous things about their bodies, their spouses, their children, their sexuality and even their dead relatives,” he said.

“In hindsight, I should not have responded to the continued insults on me, my family and deceased sister, (yes they insulted my sister who died 11 years ago) by members of the APNU+AFC,” he said.

After the disturbance in the House, the Speaker suspended the sitting for about an hour and held meetings with the Government Chief Whip, Gail Teixeira and Opposition Chief Whip Christopher Jones, but the matter remained unresolved and the coalition refused to participate in the consideration of estimates of expenditure for the 2022 National Budget.