Voting against the simple and straightforward Firearms (Amendment) Bill on Thursday does no credit to the opposition-led Parliament.  The vote against the bill piloted by the Home Affairs Minister, Mr Rohee perpetuates the view that the opposition has no workable strategy to achieve its goal of gagging the minister and will now play the role of spoiler. This is a tactical error as the public is less concerned with the opposition’s success in gagging the minister than it is in measures that would alleviate the enormous crime burden. Continuing obstinately with its quest to silence the minister hints at bruised egos in the opposition ranks and an inability or unwillingness to veer from tunnel vision. Both the courts and the Speaker of the National Assembly have made it abundantly clear that muzzling Mr Rohee in his role as a Member of Parliament is a non-starter. That doesn’t mean that the opposition has to allow the minister an easy time. They can walk out of the House when he rises, heckle, argue vociferously and when necessary vote against his legislation. But to do so for no good reason is counter-productive and Hansard will record for posterity the pettiness of the vote.

Predictably, the no vote attracted the ire of the government and Mr Rohee. The PPP/C’s Chief Whip Ms Teixeira described the outcome as “…little boys playing with big issues in a playground and they are missing the mark all the time”; except that her remark was just as suited to the government side as it was to the opposition benches.  Instead of accepting that Minister Rohee’s performance has been genuinely poor considering the two terms he has been in office and leaving room for some type of engagement with the opposition on this matter, the government has embarked on a campaign to airbrush his unimpressive record. He has been on a charm offensive with a clutch of dated bills, initiatives and policies fluttering in his wake.  The end-of-year presentation he made and these minor bills in his name are all meant to burnish his image and draw the opposition into the trap. It has worked.

Can Ms Teixeira or Minister Rohee properly explain to the public why a two-clause bill dealing with trafficking of guns and the assembling of such is only being presented at this point? Who has been asleep at wheel for so long? And will this tidy and succinct piece of legislation really make a difference to the real problem of arms trafficking. What initiatives have been mounted by Minister Rohee or indeed for that matter, Ms Teixeira when she was Home Affairs Minister to really tackle the problem of the small arms scourge which has claimed hundreds of lives in this country during the 20-year reign of the PPP/C? Are our borders better patrolled? Do we know what is coming across the Takutu River and perhaps going across the Corentyne? Has the government grappled with the role of FARC and the drug cartels in arms trafficking? And how about the heavily-armed private army that the drug lord, Mr Roger Khan mobilized? Would either Ms Teixeira or Minister Rohee address that? At the very least, the presentation of the firearms bill on Thursday represented an acceptance by the government of gross dereliction in closing the lacunae that Minister Rohee held forth on. Nonetheless the opposition should have voted for it and waited to see if it was assented to and whether charges would be brought under it.

Enough with the games.  There is serious business ahead in Parliament and clear problem. Mr Greenidge’s letter in yesterday’s Sunday Stabroek draws a line under any hope of meaningful budget consultations. The media and other civil society groups have been clamouring for the government to take these discussions seriously as it doesn’t have control of Parliament. It clearly didn’t. It has had a whole year to come to grips with the $20B cuts from last year’s budget and probably feels it can withstand another series this year. The onus was on Finance Minister Dr Singh to move the process along. He failed to do this as evidenced by the absence of any real attempt at an agreement. That the opposition was unable to clinch a deal prior to the presentation of the budget exposes its shortcomings and fumbling.

In the days ahead, an enormous responsibility will fall to the Leader of the House for Government Business and the Opposition Leader to craft a modus vivendi for ensuring that a budget reasonably satisfying to both sides can be passed. The circus of last year’s showdown and the antics of the various ringmasters have no place in this turmoil-filled space.

There has to be meaningful and genuine compromise on the budget. Is the government even ready to consider this? In his column in yesterday’s Sunday Stabroek, former Speaker of the National Assembly and former longstanding executive of the PPP, Mr Ralph Ramkarran had this to say about what the PPP needed to do to stay relevant.

“….(what is needed is)  a discourse on the economic and political challenges faced by Guyana against the background of world and regional political and economic developments using the methodology of Cheddi Jagan, analysing how Guyana’s business people can take advantage in the current situation, pointing to the place of Guyana’s workers, particularly sugar workers, in this scenario, announcing plans for the  reconstructing and democratizing the Party, condemning corruption and announcing measures to curb it and recognizing that none of this can be achieved without talking seriously with the Opposition.”

government has to engage with the opposition in the interest of the country.  Cooperation in Parliament on a motion on the decrepit capital is neither here nor there. The budget is an entirely different matter.

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