Minister of Housing and Water Irfaan Ali will appear before the National Assem-bly’s Privileges Committee over a controversial $4B supplementary allocation to his Ministry.
AFC MP Khemraj Ramjattan had moved a disciplinary motion against Ali and Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh and yesterday Speaker of the National Assembly Ralph Ramkarran ruled that a prima facie case has been made out against Ali while the motion against the Finance Minister was dismissed.
Ramkarran noted that Ali’s referral is not a finding of guilt but rather an assertion/ allegation and that Ali is yet to be heard in the matter. The matter would be fully ventilated and decided before the Privileges Committee, where Ali would present his defence, Ramkarran added.
Ramjattan sought to have the two ministers appear before the Committee of Privileges, which deals with disciplinary matters as it relates to Members of Parliament. In the privileges motion against Ali, Ramjattan said the minister, on both January 11, 2010 during the consideration of Financial Paper No.6 of 2009 and on February 25, 2010 when the estimates were being considered, evaded, avoided and flagrantly refused to answer questions put to him concerning when actually the $4B was disbursed.
Ramjattan said Ali caused the Assembly to be misled into believing that the $4B will be spent or be disbursed on a date after its approval on January 11, 2010 when the sum was already spent in 2009, as evidenced in the Estimates of 2010. He said too that the minister has since given no explanation to the National Assembly for his remarks which contradict the Estimates.
He called on the house to signal its unanimous disapproval of the statement and asked that the matter be referred to the Privileges Committee. In April, Ramjattan wrote to Ramkarran, indicating his intention to move a motion in accordance with Standing Order 32. Explaining his move, Ramjattan said that on January 11, 2010, when Singh was seeking approval for $4B in spending for infrastructural development and building, both Singh and Ali deceived the House. “When the Minister of Water and Housing [Irfaan Ali] answered Sheila Holder’s question with his utterance – “We are ready” – both these Ministers were knowingly misleading the House,” Ramjattan said. He also opined that this was “contemptuous conduct.”
