Dear Editor,
I am not sure whether voters worry about the rights of the MPs they have elected and how they may use the little space open to them to demand an account from the executive.
The most useful instrument as a single process in the Parliament similar to the Guyana type is the Committee of Supply. It came down to the ex-colonies by accident, because the British wanted to push their ways on their newly released prisoners. After independence few dared to change it. In fact in elected dictatorships it was the big fig leaf hiding our democratic nakedness.
Leaders of government business may by various devices delay the answering of written questions, monkey around with motions of the opposition, and in various ways frustrate the MPs who want to hold the executive to account. But in the Committee of Supply, even where the government proclaims its paramountcy and treats transparency as something that is of interest to people they label “too fast,” MPs can raise questions.
How many advisers has the President in his Office, and what is the portfolio and salary of each of them? All of this is relevant. An MP may not be allowed to cite a newspaper report as a ground for a question, but if curious about the substance of a report may ask it on his or her own authority. The issues of Barama and forestry management, for example, are examples of questions that a member can put direct to the relevant minister. The trade union movement ought to be supplying questions to members about the work of the Trade Union Recognition Board
It is surely of public interest whether the President’s marriage was conducted by a marriage officer and what were the responsibilities if any of that officer in registering the marriage.
The government contracting system, whether conducted directly by the cabinet, or by its nominees, is a great and instant displacer of African contractors of any standing. This policy has an under-development effect on many African communities; this is where maginalisation is going on rapidly before our very eyes, not in the historical records, but here and now. It is all done under cover of the Procurement Act which was made so as to preempt and disable the Procurement Commis-sion in the constitution, not yet appointed.
The Committee of Supply comes after the debate on the second reading of the Appropriation Bill. This debate is really on the budget speech and also on what was not said in the budget speech. The rules allow a debate on political and economic conditions in the country at this stage. It is hard for a serious MP to be ruled out of order in the second reading of the budget debate. Nothing spoken by a member in Parliament can normally become the subject of a libel suit, as it is privileged. There are cases of express and deliberate malice which may not be protected.
Can ministers be criticized? Certainly, an MP can. A minister can be singled out for criticism and if necessary exposure. Does this include the President? There is a standing order that the President cannot be criticised except on a specific motion naming his office. All an MP has to do is to move such a motion. It is fully in order once notice is given in the ordinary way.
There is scope for the Speaker’s calling a speaker to account because the Standing Orders (SO) declare that when an item is under consideration the debate should be on the policy of the agency. The business in the Committee of Supply, after the debate on the second reading, gives great scope and it is unfair for the Party Whip to silence backbenchers in this process. MPs may ask questions about the Head of the Estimates under consideration, but that is not all the MP can do. If the question is not answered the MP can rise and draw attention to the lack of an answer. A member may rise in committee as often as s/he needs to speak. If the Chair finds that the member is not speaking on the “policy of the agency” all the member, who has facts to disclose or challenge, has to do is to work these into a discussion of policy. A member is not confined by his or her residence but may ask all necessary and relevant questions: “Can the minister tell the house what took place between the ministry and a delegation from Bagotville?”
During the debate on a Heads of the Estimates in the Committee of Supply a member may move a motion without notice and a debate should take place on such a motion.
Matters like the long outstanding matter of torture should surely come up in this way. Ministers may be asked why certain crimes have not led to an arrest despite the guarantees given by the minister at the time. It can be asked whether the minister now thinks that in a particular case foreign assistance should have been sought and admits that it was a blunder not to do so; it does not have to be last year either.
Issues like the flooding on the coast, the planned Hope Canal are matters on which the MPs can press the ministers. They should not be allowed to run in the Committee of Supply. Police shooting of suspects − all the unanswered questions; the slaughter of the miners in Berbice River; the circumstances under which Fineman, a human being was shot; all questions of the administration of VAT, and issues whether the minister or the ministry had erred in fixing any aspect of the tax, are highly relevant. They should be made to answer in detail on matters of trade union recognition and the withholding of the subvention from Critchlow Labour College.
The minister responsible must be able to answer or at least respond to specific questions of detail touching a government koker in a village in the Pakaraimas, a town in Essequibo, a village on the coast wherever the taxpayers pay for government services.
I just found out that the Standing Orders were revised some years after the constitution. MPs knowing these SOs will find ways of using them to get where they want to get in the public interest.
Yours faithfully,
Eusi Kwayana
