Opposition takes control of Committee of Selection

The combined opposition on February 10 took control of the Committee of Selection, which is responsible for the composition of all other committees in the Parliament, with five seats to government’s four seats.

Representing government on the committee are Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, Presidential Advisor on Governance Gail Teixeira, Agriculture Minister Dr Leslie Ramsammy and Indranie Chandarpal.

Sitting on the committee for the opposition are Chief Whip Amna Ally, Joseph Harmon, Volda Lawrence, Dr George Norton of the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and Khemraj Ramjattan of the Alliance For Change (AFC).

Prime Minister Samuel Hinds presented a motion for the Committee of Selection to be comprised of 10 seats, as per tradition, five coming from government and the other five from the combined opposition (four from APNU, and one from the AFC). However, the opposition objected and the motion was amended by a vote of 33 in favour and 31 against.

Chief Whip Amna Ally, who called for the amendment to the motion, said the 10th Parliament is with a difference and must reflect that difference. “The reality, Mr Speaker, is that the government of the day is a minority government. The Committee of Selection is a very important committee since it is this committee that is responsible for the composition of all other committees. Hence, Mr Speaker, if we go with the government’s proposal of five-five, five government, five opposition, it would be a recipe for gridlock and impasse.” Ally called for the motion to be amended to nine committee members as opposed to 10.

“Mr Speaker, in the spirit of good governance we want unity, we believe in consensus; and as far as practicable, we will be pleased to enjoy the luxury of good governance, but the reality of this is that we cannot be optimistic that with the PPP/C good governance would prevail.

“We would like to ask that the Committee of Selection and reference to standing order 85/2 be amended from 10 members to 9 members and further that the committee be changed from 10 to nine.” The amendment was seconded by Deputy Speaker Deborah Backer.

However, Presidential Advisor on Governance Gail Teixeira said the issue before the House is the size of the committee, which she termed the “mother committee”. “Mr Speaker, talk has been made by the speaker before me, Chief Whip Amna Ally, about a minority government but in Parliament the issue that we are dealing with is to ensure that all of the committees and the Committee of Selection ensure that there is a balance of the parties’ strength in Parliament. It does not deal with the strength of the opposition and the strength of the Parliament.”

She pointed to Standing Order 94/ 1 that says that every committee must reflect a balance of parties in the National Assembly.

“Whether, there is a combined opposition or not is of no relevance right now, the issue is the strength of each party and there is not a minority party on the government side, we have 32 seats and no other party in this House has 32 seats.” Teixeira continued: “Secondly, the mathematical formula of 10 is probably if we look at the standing order – when you do the mathematical formula for six, the lowest amount, therefore it shows three for the government, two for APNU and one for AFC.

“According to the presidential advisor, the PPP/C secured 32 seats representing 49.230 per cent, meaning 4.9 persons “you can’t have a 9 person and therefore the number is upped to five.” The APNU secured 26 out of the 65 seats in the legislature representing 40 per cent of the votes. Teixeira noted that the APNU should get four members, while the AFC with 10.76 per cent of the votes should secure one member on the committee.

“This is the fairest mathematical proportionality representation of the parties in these parties,” she told the House.

“I am appealing to APNU and AFC, combined and separately, that in the interest of this House that we use the same mathematical formula as stated in the paper 5-4-1.”

In the meantime, AFC executive member Khemraj Ramjattan said the committee must represent the parliamentary makeup. He said, “I do not know mathematics, but I know who wants to have control and we also know the concept of control freakism. We have to have a Committee of Selection that is a reflection of what we have in Parliament here; this Parliament has as a majority the members of the opposition.” Ramjattan assured that all parliamentarians have committed to doing what is right in the interest of all.

“We have made a commitment that we are going to be in the spirit of compromise to do that which is right; so you come with good names and come with good objectives we are going to support it in all the committees, so there is no need to be afraid of a 4-4-1 scenario. The president spoke here of avoidance of a gridlock government, do you know what will happen, especially in the context of history if is going to be a 5-5? We are not going to, in any way, move, and I feel that with a 4-4-1 [split] we are going to make decisions, determinations are going to be based on the argument and not on the strength of each party,” Ramjattan stated affirmatively.

Teixeira was quoted by the Government Information Agency (GINA) as saying that the focus should have been on the balance of the strength of the parties in Parliament and reiterated that the PPP/ C is the largest Parliamentary Party with 32 seats; noting that there is no provision in the Constitution or the Standing Orders for a combined opposition in the Committee of Selection only in the sectoral committees.

This, she maintained, “is distorting the proportionality of the ruling party’s strength in Parliament… despite all the comments that were made by the opposition about cooperation and working together, this is a sham… it’s about power and making sure that they are going to be completely uncooperative in this Parliament. We are a government made up of leaders who are used to making compromises… we fought for what we believed in and we will continue to do that in Parliament, but the composition of the Committee of Selection is a travesty in that it does not reflect a balance of the political Parties.”