Up to yesterday, the AFC had not relayed to APNU the conditionalities or shown the coalition a draft of a no-confidence motion that could be moved against the Donald Ramotar administration, the coalition’s leader David Granger has said.
APNU’s chairman Dr Rupert Roopnaraine had announced on Thursday that the parliamentary opposition will by Tuesday decide on whether to move a no-confidence motion against the government. On Thursday, the APNU and the AFC met and decided to come to a definitive position by Tuesday.
Granger said yesterday that the meeting was exploratory in that they needed to get “information from the AFC about their intentions.” He said that APNU insisted that its main concern was to prevent unauthorized expenditure of more funds and to put measures in place to prevent the government from spending or accessing funds which were not approved by the National Assembly.
“As far as the APNU/AFC engagement is concerned, we are aware that an announcement was made by the AFC but we were not informed about the conditionalities or about the actual text of the motion…we have not yet seen the motion we don’t know if the motion has been drafted,” he stated.
He further stated that they are engaging with the AFC to ensure that the coalition’s immediate aim, of bringing a halt to the unauthorised expenditure of funds, is realised. “As far as the motion is concerned as I said, APNU has not seen any motion of no-confidence in the Government and we will not probably see one until the first step that I have mentioned have been tried.
If it is successful we would have prevented the mischief, if it is not successful then we move on to the next stage,” Granger said.
After the meeting on Thursday, Roopnaraine told Stabroek News that a potential no-confidence motion is too serious a matter for only one party to proceed with. “I believe that the Parliament has to show that its processes have been abused… Parliament needs to have a sharp response to this abuse,” he said.
Roopnaraine, speaking about the decision by Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh to table a financial paper to cover $4.5 billion that was spent by the administration in defiance of opposition-led cuts to the national budget, noted that such exploitation needs to be firmly addressed. He disclosed that the other options the parties are considering are to completely reject the financial papers or declare them out of order.
