AFC Chairman Khemraj Ramjattan yesterday apologized to the National Assembly for his unsubstantiated allegation that the Parliamentary Hansard had been tampered with, but later joined his party’s MPs in walking out after Housing Minister Irfaan Ali declined to respond to questions they raised on the $4 billion expenditure at the centre of the row.
Before the Consideration of the 2010 Estimates of Expenditure by the Committee of Supply got underway yesterday, Ramjattan read a statement to the House during which he apologized for impugning the integrity of the House’s record keeping. He told the House that his suspicions and charges were made in “good faith” but admitted that he erred in going prematurely to the Kaieteur News to express his views. Ramjattan noted that the investigations into his charges were conducted expeditiously after he lodged a complaint with Speaker of the National Assembly, Ralph Ramkarran. After listening to the audio recording, Ramjattan said he agreed that it corresponded with the Hansard. “The Hansard has not been tampered with, rather it has turned out, the Minister was not representing the truth to the Assembly…” he said while adding that he intended to prove this to the National Assembly. Ramjattan said that during the January 11 sitting, Ali had indeed said “we are ready” instead of “we have spent it already”, when he was asked by AFC MP Sheila Holder how soon the Minister could spend the $4 billion that he was seeking in supplementary provisions. Ramjattan, however, later withdrew this allegation against the Minister from his apology, after PPP/C MP Gail Teixeira objected and Speaker Ramkarran sided with her. Teixeira said that the allegations against the Housing Minister were not in keeping with what they were trying to achieve in the House, an assertion which Ramkarran supported.
Prime Minister Samuels Hinds accepted Ramjattan’s apology on behalf of the government. He called on “the Kaieteur News and other media…to resist the attempts to make this Parliament and the members of the Parliament look bad in the eyes of the Guyanese. “ Further, he said “it’s very easy in any society to fan the flames of (an) incident but they lead to a bitterness and acrimony between members in society and even members in this Parliament. ”He called on the media to work towards fostering greater harmony in the society so that work on developing the country could continue.
However, later in yesterday’s proceedings when the proposed capital expenditure for the Housing and Water Ministry came up for consideration, Ali was asked several questions about the $4,430,000,000 that had been spent in 2009 under the Project Code Infrastructural Development and Building with the project description of the “development of infrastructure in new areas and payment of retention”. The original provisions budgeted for this initiative in 2009 was $430million. $680 million has been budgeted for this initiative in the 2010 Budget.
When Ali was asked by PNCR-1G Shadow Finance Minister Winston Murray, Ramjattan and Holder to account for the $4 billion he had requested in supplementary provisions, Ali said he had “adequately and exhaustively” debated the issue at the time that Parliament passed the provisions and that he “had nothing to add to that”.
Ali’s reluctance to answer the questions clearly irked Ramjattan who tried to phrase the questions in various ways. At one point in the proceedings, the Speaker urged the AFC Chairman “to follow forensic logic” and said “there is one $4 billion. It’s listed under 2009, what conclusion can you draw from that?” In response, Ramjattan said “I don’t want the inference, I want the Minister to help with transparency”. Afterwards, when Ali was asked by the Speaker if he had anything to add he said “no”.
Murray then enquired of Ali what particular projects he was undertaking this year in relation to the $680 million allocated for the construction of roads and water distribution networks in the country. The Minister outlined several programmes but none included any work on the Diamonds lands that his Ministry acquired from GuySuCo.
The PNCR-1G MP quickly picked this up and enquired why the Minister had been in such a haste to get the $4 billion to purchase the land from GuySuCO when no money was being spent to develop the land during 2010. After Ali declined to respond, Murray shouted from his seat “you wanted to bail out GuySuCo…why don’t we face it”.
After renewed attempts by the AFC MPs to get a response from Ali failed, the MPs stormed out of Parliament.
Later a visibly upset Ramjattan told this newspaper that “the Minister was caught with his pants down”. Ramjattan said that he will now seek advice about pursuing legal action against the Minister, since this was a serious issue.
On January 11, when Supplementary Paper #6 was up for debate, the Opposition MPs walked out of that sitting after the Housing Minister refused to specify what the additional $4 billion was being sought for. Following the session, it was revealed that the money had been used to acquire lands from the Guyana Sugar Corporation, and that these lands were to be used to provide house lots for Guyanese.
