Three committees have been established by the government and opposition on security, governance and economic matters and government has also undertaken to facilitate a request by the Alliance For Change (AFC) and A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) to meet with and make presentations to the Tax Review Committee that President Donald Ramotar has established.
This is one of the undertakings of Monday’s tripartite meeting, where President Donald Ramotar and representatives of the AFC and APNU agreed on an agenda for further engagement on a number of issues, including reviewing the tax system, the national budget and closer scrutiny of the Amaila Falls Hydro Project. The meeting came in the aftermath of the hung parliament from the November 28 general elections and the realization that nothing can be approved in Parliament without the involvement of the opposition.
The meeting agreed to the establishment of three inter-parliamentary party committees. These are the Governance (non- parliamentary) Committee which would focus on state boards, GECOM, Advisory Committee on Broadcasting and the public and private media and identified security concerns; secondly, the Parliament/Constitution Committee would address issues regarding composition of parliamentary committees, status and implementation of the Parliamentary Special Select Committee’s report on the Sir Michael Davies’ Report, appointment of the Public Procurement Commission, and conclusion of the local government reform as well as a policy on statutory commissions; and thirdly the Economic (Non- Budget 2012)Committee would focus on Old Age Pensions, housing incentives for specific categories of workers and the poor and vulnerable.
At the meeting, the members of APNU and the AFC representatives to meet with Minister Dr. Ashni Singh and Minister Irfaan Ali on Budget 2012 were identified as Carl Greenidge and Winston Jordan and Prakash Ramjattan and Gerhard Ramsaroop, respectively.
Several key issues were selected for plenary discussions whilst others were considered within the remit of the Tax Review Committee. According to the statement, the AFC and APNU expressed their interest in meeting with and presenting their views to the Tax Review Committee that the President appointed to review the entire taxation system. “There was no objection to this request and efforts would be made to facilitate this,” the statement said.
“In addition there were some issues that the meeting decided required further discussion. One such related to the AFC proposal to review major projects such as Amaila Falls Hydro-project and others and have these sent to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Economic Services,” the statement said.
It said that the APNU preferred the establishment of a Task Force that would carry out a review. It said the President cautioned the meeting on the sensitivity of this issue and stated that this required further discussion at the plenary. “The meeting agreed to continue discussion on this issue at the plenary level,” the statement said.
According to the Joint Statement, much of the meeting focused on prioritizing the issues that each committee would examine and the parties committed to naming their representatives to each at the next scheduled meeting on Tuesday.
Further, the statement said that specific issues were extracted for discussions between the President and the Leader of the Opposition in accordance with the constitutional provisions at a meeting to be held next week.
There was no mention in the release of the benefits package for former President Bharrat Jagdeo which the two opposition parties had expressed deep concern about.
