Shadow Minister of Finance Carl Greenidge is debunking acting Cabinet Secretary Gail Teixeira’s assertion that he cannot bring a bill to the National Assembly to address the former Presidents benefits and other facilities Act since a select committee has been tasked with examining the same legislation.
Teixeira, at the weekly Cabinet press briefing on Friday said that Greenidge’s Bill seeks to pre-empt the work of the select committee.
If leave is granted, the Clerk of the National Assembly will read aloud the title of the Bill. The Greenidge bill aims to limit the controversial Act passed under former President Bharrat Jagdeo giving him and other former presidents widely criticised benefits and facilities.
“She has misunderstood the resolution to the motion passed,” Greenidge said, referring to Teixeira’s comments.
The motion resolved that a Parliamentary Committee be convened to examine the Pensions (President, Parliamentary and Special Offices) Act, Part II Section 4 and to make proposals for their revision. It resolved too that the Special Parliamentary Committee would submit as a matter of urgency a revised superannuation benefit package for those persons to whom the Parliamentary and Holders of Special Offices Act applies and for those other categories of employees catered for by other government pensions and arrangements.
The motion further resolved that the revised superannuation package be sent by the Special Parliamentary Committee for consideration and approval by the National Assembly.
Greenidge told Stabroek News yesterday that the aim of the resolution of the motion passed in the House earlier in the year was to have a committee establish upon what principle the current levels of pension for constitutional office holders and whether they need to be modified.
“This is what the committee was established to do. The other benefits and facilities issue is a different one. The question of the other benefits is not up for discussion by the select committee. The pension of the other constitutional office holders is the subject of the select committee,” Greenidge said.
Greenidge’s motion on the former President’s Benefits and other Facilities acknowledged that the National Assembly should make appropriate, adequate and reasonable provision for a President to enjoy a comfortable and dignified retirement. The first recital clause said that it is within the national interest that such provision is made relative to the capacity of the country’s coffers to support it.
Teixeira at her press conference lamented that today’s sitting will be the fourth since the Tenth Parliament reconvened after its annual recess and Government is still unable to have its business addressed in the House. “As such, Government will be moving to have another sitting on December 20; whether or not this will find favour with the Opposition, remains to be seen,” the Government Information Agency (GINA) quotes Teixeira as saying..
“Governments whether majority or minority, must have a right to bring their business to be addressed in the House…we have made it very clear, and we have already indicated to the Speaker that we will be calling for a sitting on December 20, we have a lot of items on the order paper that are pending,” Teixeira said.
Pending are seven Government Bills, supplementary financial papers, and a Motion on the 40th anniversary of Guyana-Cuba diplomatic relations,” the release said.
The last few sittings of Parliament were thrown into an uproar over the opposition’s attempts to gag Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee.
