The Tenth Parliament: An Unruly Horse

THE Tenth Parliament has been dissolved. It was unprecedented in many respects. It was the first Parliament in the history of Guyana in which the Opposition enjoyed a majority. One would have expected therefore, that the Opposition would be able to boast an impressive line of accomplishments for the people as a result of the advantage which they have enjoyed in the tenth Parliament. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Instead, the tenth Parliament has been dominated by an Opposition whose agenda was driven by hate, revenge, authoritarianism and ego. Indeed, an examination of any of the postures adopted by the Opposition in the National Assembly, either in the Bills laid, Motions proffered, questions posed or positions adopted in the Committee of Supply and in debates generally, will easily establish this hate, revenge, authoritarianism and ego.
SPEAKER, DEPUTY SPEAKER
One of the first businesses of any Parliament is the election of Speaker and Deputy Speaker. In this engagement, the Opposition made its agenda clear for the tenth Parliament. This took place in the very first sitting. Although the PPP/C enjoyed a majority in every Parliament since 1992, it ensured that while it elected a Speaker of its choice, the Opposition always secured the position of Deputy Speaker, unopposed. With the positions reversed, fairness would have dictated reciprocity. In the tenth Parliament the Opposition entertained none of this. With authoritarian hunger and in disregard for Parliamentary tradition and of course fairness, they grabbed both positions of Speaker and Deputy Speaker. This anti-democratic and contempt for Parliamentary precedents dominated the Tenth Parliament.

BUDGET CUTS
Every Budget of the Tenth Parliament was unlawfully and unconstitutionally reduced by the Opposition, depriving the economy of billions of dollars of programmes, all designed to advance the developmental agenda of the nation and the social welfare of our people, more particularly, our working people, our youths and the poor, elderly and vulnerable. Ironically, these are the very people on whose behalf the Opposition claim to be acting. These cuts were repeated annually, in complete disregard of rulings from the Chief Justice, in proceedings filed by the Government. So the Rule of Law, an indispensable ingredient in the democratic equation, was also a casualty of the tenth Parliament. Indeed, had the Government not restored these unlawful cuts to the Budgets, thousands of Public Servants would have been put on the bread line, as their salaries were cut from the Budget with no alternative source of income being identified by the Opposition. I am not in doubt that many of these Public Servants may have voted for the very Opposition. That mattered not. The Opposition’s response was captured in the callous remark of Khemraj Ramjattan, who said that they were “collateral damage.” The programmes which were casualties of the Opposition “scissors” (Mosses Nagamootoo’s description) include but are not limited to:
the Amerindian Developmental Fund, the Hinterland roads project, rehabilitation to Hinterland Airstrips, subsidies to GPL so that electricity rates would not be increased, subsidies to GuySuco to protect the jobs of 17,000 sugar workers, the Hope Canal Project which is intended to prevent flooding and protect the interest of farmers and residents of Demerara, CJIA expansion, the Specialty Hospital, the subsidy to GWI so that pensioners will not pay water rates, the students loan programme of University of Guyana, the We Care $10,000 grant to children in the public school system, uniform and school feedings programmes and many more.
Every one of the aforesaid initiatives was intended and indeed, did have a direct impact on the lives of our people. That did not matter to the Opposition.

BILLS
The tenth Parliament witnessed the unprecedented voting down of Bills laid by the Government in the arena of crime fighting, but more fundamentally, Bills that were intended to enable Guyana as a Nation State to discharge its international obligations. The non-passage of these Bills have exposed Guyana as a nation not only to international ridicule, but also expose our financial system, our economy and indeed, every single citizen to international sanctions with perilous financial and economic consequences. However, these were not matters sufficiently grave to secure the support of the Opposition. Indeed, they used the importance of these Bills to hold the Government to political ransom. As a result, the Caribbean Court of Justice awarded judgment against Guyana to the tune of approximately 1.2 Billion Guyana dollars for our failure to amend our Customs Act, to bring it in conformity with our Treaty obligations under the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas. This amendment was voted down twice by the Opposition in the National Assembly.
In similar vein, Guyana remains the only Country in the Western Hemisphere that has not enacted the required internationally recommended Anti Money Laundering & Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Bill. In Consequence, Guyana is being monitored by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and has been given until September to enact this Bill. A failure can result in universal blacklisting of Guyana’s economy in terms of commerce and trade with countries, as well as the International Financial Institutions (IFI). If anyone was in doubt about whether the Opposition appreciated the seriousness of this Bill, those doubts should have dissipated, since they (Opposition) shamelessly lists this Bill as one of their priorities in the new Parliament, should they win the upcoming elections.
It would be remiss of me if I do not, at this juncture, mention the fact that the Opposition tabled a series of Bills, every one of which collided with the Constitution and were therefore unconstitutional. Indeed, none of those Bills addressed the welfare or interest of any section of our population. They were all generically designed to either reduce constitutionally conferred powers of the Executive or, they maliciously targeted the lawful entitlements of some public officials. In short, these Bills were inspired by avarice for political power and a desire for revenge. I repeatedly challenged the Opposition to test my opinion that these Bills were unconstitutional in the Judiciary. To date they never accepted my challenge.

NO CONFIDENCE MOTION AGAINST ROHEE
The undemocratic and authoritarian proclivities of the Opposition were epitomised in the tenth Parliament by their attempt to gag Member of Parliament (MP) and Minister of Home Affairs, Clement Rohee from speaking. Indeed, the word Parliament owes its genesis to the French infinitive parler and Latin word parli – to speak. In essence, Parliament is the highest Constitutional forum at which elected representatives of the people represent their interests on their behalf by “speaking”. This concept is captured in Article 9 of our Constitution which provides,
“Sovereignty belongs to the people, who exercise it through their representatives and the democratic organs established by or under this Constitution.”
Parliament is one of the most paramount democratic organs established by the Constitution. Therefore, any attempt to prevent an MP from speaking, strikes at the very heart of Parliamentary democracy, Constitutional governance and the Rule of Law. In the case of Minister Rohee, the basis upon which they sought to gag him had nothing to do with what he said or did in the Parliament itself, but related to the baseless allegation that he instructed the Police to shoot protesters at Linden on July the 16th, 2012. Their actions were challenged by me in the Court and the Chief Justice ruled, on two occasions, that they acted unconstitutionally. The Speaker of the National Assembly also ruled, on a Motion moved by them, that their actions were unlawful and unconstitutional. Notwithstanding and in complete disregard to the rulings of the Court and the Speaker, they refused to support any Bill which Minister Rohee tabled thereafter. Significantly, they called upon the Government to establish a Commission of Inquiry into the shootings at Linden. They demanded to participate in the selection of persons to constitute this inquiry and maintained that some of these persons must come from outside of Guyana. They insisted in participating in drafting the Terms of Reference (TORs). The Government obliged and they were duly consulted in the appointment of the Commissioners, as well as the drafting of the TOR. The Commission comprised of a former Chief Justice of Jamaica, a distinguished Queens Counsel from Jamaica, a Senior Counsel from Trinidad, a former Chancellor from the Judiciary of Guyana and a former Guyanese Justice of Appeal.
Not only did the Commission in its findings exonerate Minister Rohee from any wrong doing, it also blamed the Opposition themselves for contributing to the chaotic situation which led to the demise of four persons and injuries to several others. In short, the Commission’s report was a colossal embarrassment to the Opposition since they called for it.
Unfortunately, this folly of the Opposition cost the taxpayer’s over 150 million dollars.
In another installment, I will examine perhaps the greatest casualty of the tenth Parliament, the Amaila Falls Hydro Project.
MOHABIR ANIL NANDLALL
Attorney-General and Minister of Legal Affairs

extracted from the Guyana Chronicle