The fault is not in our Parliament, it lies squarely on this arrogant and shameless government

DEAR EDITOR, I find no merit whatsoever in the Nandlallian nonsense about the role of our Parliament. This post-2011 Parliament will go down in history as the most robust in holding the feet of government to the fire of accountability and transparency. The pseudo PPP does not like this. Being reduced to a minority it can no longer use Parliament to rubber stamp its decisions nor treat the opposition as a toothless poodle. The Attorney General ought to know that subject only to the powers of the judiciary to review decisions of parliament for unconstitutionality, the legislature is autonomous and sovereign. But we have seen the attempts of this minority government to degrade parliament by mounting spurious challenges to its authority, whenever it cannot get its way, and the refusal of the President to assent to laws passed by parliament. This has been a vulgar attempt to castrate Parliament and to subvert it when the majority opposition are condemned as “terrorists” and “saboteurs”. The AG has failed to grapple with the rudimentary role of our Parliament to advance the political cause for change and transformation. He has sadly forgotten that it was the founder of the PPP, Dr. Cheddi Jagan, who taught us “to take the people to parliament, and parliament to the people” during his own politics of protest. The AFC and the united majority opposition are today part of this dialectics of struggle. The AG is trying to circle the PPP wagon now that this government is under attack for corruption and ministers are being cited for malfeasance. The power of parliament to censure officials is elementary in all democracies and the Finance Minister is not beyond reproach for spending monies not approved by parliament or diverting monies for wage increases. Neither was the Home Affairs Minister immune from the sanction of parliament for not exercising ministerial responsibility in a situation that resulted in fatality of peaceful protesters. It is a red herring to bring in Barbados where the unemployment statistics are not a state secret and workers enjoy a living wage. Thousands of Guyanese have found Barbados a safe haven, whilst tens of thousands at home are jobless and under-employed and/or live on starvation wages. This boast that we have money is shallow and deceptive. We live on borrowed money to the tune of $365 billion. We have pawned our children’s future whilst giving away their patrimony in sweetheart deals involving land, spectrum and other national assets. The fault is not in our Parliament, as Nandalall seeks to portray.  It lies squarely on this arrogant and shameless government which still believes that the loser must take all. The AG has given us more reasons to continue the struggle for change and inclusive democracy. Moses Nagamootoo AFC MP