Opposition leaders believe that the frequency of the sittings of the National Assembly are sufficient and say that often the public is not aware of the work that goes on behind the scenes.
There is a general feeling that the National Assembly should meet more often, but it must be remembered that the members of parliament are only part time and have other jobs to earn their living, APNU Chairman Dr Rupert Roopnaraine said. He added that there are very few parliamentarians who can be called full-time parliamentarians. “Parliament should meet as often as it is necessary to accomplish its agenda,” he said.
The APNU official also said that there are “unreasonable expectations” of what parliamentarians can and cannot do. He pointed out that they do preparatory work before a sitting to ensure that they are ready to get down to real business during the session. Further, Roopnaraine said that all the committees of parliament are being activated and this is where a lot of the work is done – even more than at the sittings. “Parliamentarians are very busy with committee work,” he said, adding that this is not as visible as the sittings.
AFC leader Khemraj Ramjattan also noted that MPs have to earn a living. “We have our professions, we have other activities to do,” he said. Ramjattan said that he is in agreement with the present arrangement. “I feel we are doing as good as we can do in the present circumstances,” he said.
Meantime, in relation to Monday’s incident where a motion by Ramjattan was stalled due to the absence of MPs from both sides, the officials said that this needs to be avoided but also noted that there are some circumstances which cannot be planned for. With both government and opposition MPs absent on Monday, a motion by the opposition to establish the independence of the Parliament Office was stalled. After a vote of proclamation at the end of the debate, a division was called for and the result was a vote of 31 to 31, owing to the absence of the members Dawn Hastings of APNU, Cathy Hughes of the AFC and Foreign Affairs Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett from the government’s side.
The motion had called for the House to move that a Special Select Committee examine recommendations for the independence of the National Assembly on the steps to be undertaken to enable the Clerk to become the employing authority of the staff of the Parliament Office.
In relation to the incident, Roopnaraine said that they have been ensuring that all their parliamentarians are present and he was not sure why Hastings was not present. He noted that Hughes had a family emergency situation. It is something that they need to pay careful attention to and have been looking at it all along, but “you can’t make arrangements for certain things,” he said. This was echoed by Ramjattan.
