While declining to comment on the main opposition’s concerns about the failure to set a date for the next sitting of the National Assembly, Speaker Manzoor Nadir yesterday said that during his tenure parliamentary business will not be impeded by “maximum administrative delay”.
Nadir’s reaction came one day after Leader of the Opposition Joseph Harmon accused the governing People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) administration of trying to “stifle” the National Assembly by failing to set a legislative agenda and thereby preventing the holding of sittings of the Assembly.
Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Gail Teixeira has also told this newspaper that there is not “enough material” for a sitting.
Nadir declined to publicly respond to Harmon’s assertions yesterday. “I don’t know about the Leader of Opposition but I will not be discussing Assembly business in the press,” he told Sunday Stabroek. “There are Standing Orders addressing that. We have been responding to the Chief Whip and other opposition members of the National Assembly,” he added.
Harmon has also expressed concern about the lack of meetings of the sectoral committees, which are responsible for parliamentary oversight of the natural resources, foreign relations, economic services and social services sectors.
The Parliamentary Management Committee, he claimed, met on Thursday after weeks of “pressing” from his office. The meeting, however, did not reach any actionable decisions.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which has not met since August 6, 2018, has still not been convened. Communication between the designated chair David Patterson and Clerk Sherlock Isaacs show that it is only the Speaker who can convene the first meeting of the PAC.
After receiving this information, Patterson wrote to Nadir and asked for his “urgent intervention and assistance in scheduling the first meeting.”
