Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo yesterday said the six-week adjournment of the National Assembly could have been avoided if the opposition had chosen to nominate a candidate to be Deputy Speaker.
PPP/C Chief Whip Gail Teixeira on Friday told Stabroek News that the opposition was surprised by the government’s decision to adjourn the Assembly until May, since it had given no earlier indication. She also said the delay pointed to the government having an almost non-existent parliamentary agenda.
However, in a statement released yesterday by the Office of the Prime Minister, Nagamootoo, who is also the Leader of Government Business in the House, said that the opposition knew fully well that no sittings would be advised before this week’s local government elections and during the Easter and Phagwah holidays next week.
Additionally, he noted that 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 in 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 these events, the statement noted.
Nagamootoo, the statement added, said that he explained the six-week adjournment to Teixeira after last Thursday’s sitting and that he felt that the opposition would have had notice of the capacity building events through the Parliamentary Management Committee and Guyana Branch of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, of which it is an active member.
At the same time, Nagamootoo said 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 statement added.
It further stated that it is “most disingenuous” for the PPP/C to seek to lecture the government on a lapse in sessions given that it “strangled” the Assembly for nine months between July, 2014 and April, 2015 by proroguing Parliament then dissolving the House when the then government was faced with a no-confidence motion.
He said the PPP should be “most concerned about its own cavalier attitude towards Parliament,” while saying the opposition has so far shown “a significant amount of disrespect” for it by first boycotting sittings and then by refusing to nominate a Deputy Speaker and also staging four walkouts within five months.
A resolution which was needed to ensure Guyana becomes a member of the Inter-Parliamentary Union and three motions pertaining to the outstanding work of parliamentary oversight committees were the only items on the agenda for Thursday’s sitting.
Concerns have been expressed that there are more important matters that could have been addressed, such as the Telecommunications Bill and the Narcotics Drug and Psychotropic Substances (Control) (Amendment) Bill.
The short sitting, the cost of which was pegged at approximately $1.5 million, saw the absence of many opposition MPs.
