Govt lambastes opposition’s motions

By Ariana Gordon 

Government on Wednesday lambasted the parliamentary opposition parties the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) for tabling motions before the National Assembly on a number of identified issues ranging from the production of public records to the House to amendments to the Presidents’ Pension Act.

At a media briefing hosted by the leader of the House, Prime Minister Samuel Hinds at the National Communications Network (NCN), government said that the motions presented to the House and placed on the 20th Order Paper for consideration today (Thursday) lack merit and reflect pure vindictiveness. Hinds said that the motions were prepared “hurriedly and prematurely” to say the least.

According to Hinds, who was backed up by Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister Anil Nandlall and Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh, he has attempted to restrain himself noting that they are nine “abominable motions”. Hinds described the motions presented by APNU’s Carl Greenidge and Khemraj Ramjattan of the AFC as frivolous.

In one motion, Greenidge called for information from the Hansard dating back to 1985 to 1992 be produced to the House within two months of notice of the motion being published.

However, Hinds said that during that period records were “ill-kept” and there “was not the funding to have the records kept”, so he could not decipher the rationale behind placing the motion before the House.

“I don’t know if Mr Greenidge has some information which he is concealing and wants to dramatically reveal or it’s just an attempt to refer some of the very incisive criticisms that the minister of finance had made about his period of tenure as minister of finance,” Hinds stated.

There are three motions that seek to provide a number of agencies with independence: the courts, the service commissions and the Office of the Auditor General. Hinds said there is much uncertainty about what the opposition intends to achieve. He said should the aforementioned be what the opposition is calling for, it speaks to great irresponsibility.

As it relates to the former presidents’ pensions and benefits, the prime minister said the motivation for the motion is indeed pointing to “a great quantity of plain spitefulness and vindictiveness”. He said the fact that the motion called for steps to be taken immediately to repeal the act suggests the opposition is implying that the former president should live without any pension or benefits until such time that a new act is in place.

Information already in public domain

Meanwhile, on the issue of national assets and the disclosure of government of all reports and financial information on the disposal by sale of land et cetera by NICIL, Hinds said the opposition has acted as if unaware that information being requested is already in the public domain, in one form or another. As it relates to the independence of the National Assembly, the prime minister noted that government will maintain its position that “it is not timely yet to take some of those steps” as outlined by the mover of the motion.

Meanwhile, the opposition has also called for citizens to enjoy their right to assemble, but the prime minister said while government would like to have a situation where there would be no barriers surrounding Parliament Building, “when you are in government you are responsible for the running of things… and take prudent steps”.

According to the prime minister, the bringing of the nine motions before the National Assembly “takes up the Parliament’s time” when the time could have been used to work towards the growth and development of the country. “… we have to become engaged in these other battles which hardly contribute to the growth and development and improvement of our economy and well-being.”

Backing up the prime minister was Attorney General Nandlall, who said the motions demonstrate clearly that there is a lack of understanding and a lack of appreciation of parliamentary procedures.

“They include a lack of appreciation and knowledge of the existing process and mechanisms in relation to many of the issues that are raised in these motions.”

Nandlall said the procedure adopted by Greenidge in particular is one that “is wrong and misconceived” as the motions are not contemplated by the rules of Parliament.

Legality of legislation

“Some of them seek to challenge the legality of legislation, now the laws of our country provide clearly the procedure by which you can challenge the legality and constitutionality of legislation and it is by filing actions in the High Court to set those legislation aside or the sections of those legislations that you are contending are illegal or unconstitutional. We have imbued in our courts the power of judicial review and the judiciary is the arm or branch of government which is resided with the responsibility to deal with those matters,” the legal affairs minister stated.

He emphasised that Parliament cannot review its own legislation as that move was “not contemplated by the Constitution… it is patently wrong”. “They seek to elicit information.

We have standard parliamentary procedures to which information is elicited from the government or from ministers and how they are provided. The standing order provides for that, they are done by way of questioning by writing or orally and that is provided…”