Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo today defended the adjournment of Parliament to May 4th.
A release from the PM’s office follows:
First Vice President and Prime Minister, The Honourable Moses Nagamootoo, today said that he was perturbed by the expression of “shock” being reportedly experienced by the Opposition People’s Progressive Party over the adjournment of the National Assembly to May 4th. Prime Minister Nagamootoo, who is also the Leader of Government Business in the House said that the Opposition knows fully well that no sittings would be advised before Local Government Elections and during the Easter and Pagwah holidays.
Additionally, there is an ongoing capacity building programme among the parliamentarians of Guyana, Canada and the United Kingdom for which several seminars have been scheduled overseas during the month of April.
The Speaker of the National Assembly, the Clerk and Deputy Clerk, Clerks of Committees and other key parliamentary officers are due to travel to the United Kingdom for such events.
Nevertheless, Prime Minister Nagamootoo explained that the Assembly could have been convened in the absence of the Speaker had the Opposition named and nominated a person for the post of Deputy Speaker. The PPP rejected convention and chose to frustrate the work of the National Assembly while feigning shock over the adjournment which could have been avoided had the party felt compelled to occupy the seat of Deputy Speaker.
The adjournment to May 4, is therefore not unreasonable in the prevailing circumstances. It is most disingenuous therefore for the PPP Opposition to seek to lecture the government on lapse in sessions, especially when it is taken into consideration that when it strangled Parliament for nine continuous months between July 2014 and April 2015 by proroguing Parliament then dissolving the House when the PPP was faced with a no confidence motion.
Prime Minister proffered that the PPP’s should be most concerned about its own cavalier attitude towards Parliament, which it has so far shown a significant amount of disrespect for, first by boycotting then by refusing to nominate a Deputy Speaker then by staging four walkouts within 5 months.
Prime Minister Nagamootoo said that he has explained the six week adjournment to the Opposition Chief Whip Ms. Gail Teixeira after the March 10 sitting as he felt that the Opposition would have had notice of the capacity building events thought the Parliamentary Management Committee and Guyana Brnach of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association of which it is an active member.
