Government late yesterday warned of what it claimed is an opposition PPP/C plot to disrupt today’s sitting of National Assembly, a claim that the party’s executive member Anil Nandlall dismissed as “simply comical and the figment of the government’s paranoid imagination.”
In a statement, the Department of Public Information (DPI) said that government has credible evidence that the opposition intends to disrupt the sitting at which House Speaker Dr Barton Scotland is expected to address the consequences of the December 21 PPP/C-sponsored no-confidence vote against the government.
The DPI reminded that Government has submitted to the Speaker, a legal brief on the interpretation of the relevant constitutional provisions for passage of a confidence motion and has agreed that 34 of the 65 members is the required majority, not 33.
Scotland had ruled that the motion was carried following a `yes’ vote from government MP Charrandas Persaud. Persaud, hours after the vote, left Guyana for Canada and has since said that he voted according to his conscience. He expressed dissatisfaction with how government has been managing the affairs of the country and levelled accusations that nothing was done for Region Six where he is from.
The DPI statement added that the government has re-affirmed that it continues to respect and uphold the Constitution, and “it would resist a legislative coup, procured by bribery or other unlawful means.” It has insisted too that the Speaker ought to be allowed to pronounce on the constitutional threshold for a confidence vote, without pressure or threats of any kind.
The government used the opportunity to remind all citizens that it continues to work for them to implement the programmes for which monies have been voted in the 2019 National Budget.
At a Cabinet meeting held earlier in the day, the Minister of Finance announced that a circular will be addressed to senior state functionaries on executing all projects and delivering the services for which the allocations have been made, the statement said. It added that since the debate on the confidence motion, the government has spared no efforts at maintaining peace and good order, in spite of “the reckless provocations by the opposition to stoke ethnic conflicts and political disorder.”
When contacted, Nandlall rubbished the claims being made and said that if one reviews the public statements made by senior government functionaries, “you get a very clear impression that with the real prospect of losing governmental power, members of the government are making statements and advancing legal arguments that border on lunacy. This (the claims) is the latest manifestation of what I am speaking about.”
He told Stabroek News that the fact that a legal opinion has been tendered to the Speaker with the expectation that he will review it and reverse the passage of the no-confidence motion and his decision that it was carried, are all “part and parcel of the inane thinking of the government to which I am referring.
“Any persons with a modicum of common sense would know that the Speaker’s role in relation to the no-confidence motion is concluded. When he ruled on the 21st December, having received the results of the count carried out by the Clerk that the motion was carried, brought his role to a conclusive end,” Nandlall insisted.
He stressed that at this point, there is “absolutely nothing” that the Speaker can do in relation to the motion.
Turning his attention to the DPI’s claim that the Speaker will today address the consequences of the vote, Nandlall insisted that this is not a matter for the Speaker. Further, he said that these consequences are laid out in the Constitution.
“…the Speaker plays no role whatsoever in relation to these consequences other than to preside over a sitting of the National Assembly…to deal with some business in relation to the elections which follows a no-confidence motion,” he said adding that it is for that reason that the PPP is not lending legitimacy to today’s sitting by participating in the proceedings.
He told Stabroek News that when one looks at the order paper, it will be noticed that today the National Assembly will be engaged in the regular business of debating bills laid by the government prior to the passage of the motion. “In other words, the government seems to think that it is business as usual when it is not. The president and cabinet should have resigned by now. This sitting of the National Assembly can be described as extra constitutional if not unconstitutional,” he stressed.
