After a recess that started on August 11, the National Assembly will sit on Monday and will see a flood of motions, bills and reports including a draft law to curtail controversial benefits for former presidents and the much-anticipated report of the Auditor General for 2011.
The Former President’s (Benefits and Other Facilities) (Amendment) Bill 2012 and the Fiscal Management and Accountability (Amendment) Bill 2012 will be laid in the House by A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) MP Carl Greenidge. Before the recess, the opposition-controlled Parliament had adopted a motion condemning the President’s benefits and other facilities and Greenidge had said that he would have been bringing legislation to give effect to the motion passed. Greenidge’s Bills should have come before the commencement of the parliamentary recess however a lack of resources for legislative drafting affected their coming to the House.
Monday’s sitting will also see the 2011 Auditor General’s report being made public, tabled among a raft of other reports by the Speaker of the National Assembly, the Minister of Finance and the Prime Minister. This report is expected to have within it subsections on the National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) and the $90 million expenditure of the Guyana Police Force for elections 2011 which was the subject of heated exchanges earlier this year.
For first reading will be the Firearm (Amendment) Bill 2012 and the Music and Dancing Licences (Amendment) Bill 2012 and coming up for second reading will be the Telecommunications Bill 2012 and the Public Utilities (Amendment) Bill 2012.
This session will also see the tabling of a motion to confirm the Customs Duties (Amendment) Order 2012. There will also be a private member’s motion calling for the House to undertake steps necessary to make the National Assembly independent, moved by Khemraj Ramjattan. He is also bringing two motions – one on the Public Utilities (Amendment) Bill and the other on the Telecommunications Bill 2012. The two motions are calling for the National Assembly to grant leave for the introduction and first reading of both the Public Utilities (Amend-ment) Bill and the Telecommunica-tions Bill
There will be the second reading of the Office of the Clerk of the National Assembly Bill, a private member’s Bill which had been tabled some months ago by Volda Lawrence of A Partnership for National Unity.
The session will also see a number of questions regarding full time tutors and clinical instructors for the Georgetown School of Nursing, text books for the same institution and the expansion of its library.
Today, Speaker of the National Assembly, Raphael Trotman will convene a meeting of the Committee of Selection, for which he is Chairman, to decide on the members of a number of Special Select Committees. These committees will be examining local government legislation, the motion on Guyana’s commitments under the United Nations Human Rights Commission with regards to the abolition of the death penalty, corporal punishment and laws that discriminate against Lesbian, Gays, Bisexual and Transgendered persons.
Sources close to Parliament said that the sitting on Monday, which should have been today, had to be postponed because of President Donald Ramotar’s visit to Cuba with a number of other Ministers of Government.
