THE Guyanese people, but more particularly the political opposition supporters, need to make a hard and objective analysis of the behaviour and performance of the parliamentary representatives of the opposition parties with the intention of determining whether these elected officials are genuinely committed to the interest of the nation or are more fundamentally interested in furthering their narrow political agenda, which borders on holding back progress and development. A good start to this analysis is on the issue of the election of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly. Defying convention in parliamentary democracies the opposition parties used their combined one-seat majority to hog both positions, which is perhaps unprecedented in the British Commonwealth and even further afield.
They then moved towards dominating the various parliamentary sectoral committees by not agreeing to a proportional formula based on the performance of each party at the national elections. Instead, opting for a formula based on the two opposition parties being treated as one, even though they contested the elections as individual entities.
Their next move was to cut expenditure substantially in several sectors of last year’s budget which threatened the livelihood of hundreds of workers in the public sector.
The government rightfully took the matter to the court which ruled that it was unconstitutional for the opposition to cut sections of the budget and that they could only reject the budget in its entirety.
Despite the ruling by the court we are hearing during budget 2013 deliberations once again about cutting sections of it. This clearly demonstrates the opposition’s disregard, disrespect and contempt of the ruling of the court. Where else in the world a court ruling is totally ignored?
But this behaviour by the opposition is not surprising, because one of the opposition parties in particular, has a history and a penchant for engaging in lawlessness. It will be recalled that this party when it was in power under its infamous paramountcy of the party doctrine, flew its flag over the court buildings in Guyana. In addition, Guyanese would recall the mayhem, terror and destruction they unleashed at different periods of our history when things did not go their way. So this crass disregard for a ruling by the court is nothing new.
Therefore, Minister of Legal Affairs and Attorney General, Anil Nandlall was spot on in his presentation in the National Assembly when he declared that the combined opposition is merely seeking out a “political orgasm,” and added that to cut the budget will not harm government but rather the people of Guyana.
Nandlall told the House that even before the presentation of the estimates to the House; the opposition had regrettably announced plans to cut the budget.
“I get the feeling that by cutting the budget, they feel that they will hurt the government…if they intend to cut the budget to hurt the government, that is not what they are doing, they are hurting the Guyanese people,” he declared.
He said that when the opposition speaks on the budget, their intentions speak to “putting us in a state of anti-development.”
The presentations by opposition parliamentarians during the budget debate lacked substance and credibility and contained some mind-boggling and unbelievable statements with one of them dismissing the problems of sugar workers as the government’s problem and describing subsidies to GUYSUCO and GPL as situations of “black holes.”
Another opposition parliamentarian also went on to make a most outrageous, disrespectful and incomprehensible statement that the “Rupununi is the most backward place in the Caribbean.”
Their latest cynical move is to delay the vote on the budgetary estimates until next week by which time they would have replaced Mr. Richard Allen and restore their combined one-seat majority so that they could institute their useless chopping block.
The time is therefore now ripe for opposition supporters to decide in an honest manner whether their elected representatives are truly carrying out the mandate entrusted to them. |
