– says Dr. Luncheon
HEAD of the Presidential Secretariat Dr. Roger Luncheon said yesterday that the 10th Parliament of Guyana must meet by December 28, 2011, meaning that elections must be held and completed early enough to ensure this becomes a reality.
He spoke during his weekly post-Cabinet press briefing held at the Office of the President yesterday. Cabinet met last Thursday – September 15, 2011.
“The life of the Ninth Parliament ends on the 27th of September 2011, precisely five years after the date the Ninth Parliament met in 2006. The next sitting of the National Assembly in this Ninth Parliament is scheduled for Thursday the 22nd of September,” the HPS said.
He noted that this information was provided at the Thursday 15th meeting of Cabinet. He said the Order Paper for that sitting includes the Financial Bill dealing with the supplementary provision and the replenishment of the Contingencies Fund laid by the Minister of Finance, the Report of the Parliamentary Special Select Committee on the important Bills to transform the telecommunications sector including the Telecommunications Bill and the PUC Bill.
“The Reports from the Parliamentary Special Select Committee are expected to be favourably considered by the full house leading to their enactment after the third reading,” Dr. Luncheon said.
He said that the withdrawal by the Opposition from sittings and proceedings and their subsequent refusal to come to Parliament when summoned, those developments have made the end of the Ninth Parliament unique in the history of Guyana, the Parliament of Guyana, the Commonwealth Caribbean and probably the whole Commonwealth,” he said.
“The new 10th Parliament, constitutionally would be meeting by the 28th of December 2011, three months hence. They would be meeting and should be elected by then,” the HPS said.
Further, the HPS said that the earliest readiness date for elections as announced by GECOM is November 14. “The training of registration and elections staff was ongoing based on which selection for the staff that would be appointed during the registration and electoral exercises would be made and announced,” the HPS said.
He said that there will be in excess of 2,000 polling stations for these elections, an increase over the 1,900 odd polling stations of the last elections in 2006. “The move by GECOM to have a Code of Conduct for political parties contesting was endorsed by the Administration and they urged to have their participants similarly endorse the Code of Conduct,” Dr. Luncheon said.
The HPS said that, so far, four observer entities have been accredited for the upcoming elections. These are the Electoral Assistance Bureau (EAB) and the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU) for local missions and the Organisation of American States (OAS) and Caricom for outsider missions. The Government has also invited the Carter Center, the Union of South American Nations and the Commonwealth to observe the elections.
The Clerk of the National Assembly, Sherlock Isaacs, had told this newspaper that Parliament will stand constitutionally dissolved on September 27, 2011, if it was not dissolved by proclamation by that date.
On August 4, the National Assembly approved a motion for parliamentarians to work through the recess from August 10 to September 27. This motion, however, did not have the approval of the Opposition benches. The PNCR-1G said that it would not be attending the extended session of Parliament unless for reasons it considers to be of national importance.
The Government brought the motion to the house one week before the scheduled commencement of the parliamentary recess. Tabling the motion, Prime Minister Sam Hinds said the decision to seek a postponement of the parliamentary recess was not one that the Government took lightly.
The prime minister made it clear that the postponement of the parliamentary recess was in no way an extension of this period of Government, and insisted that the Parliament will dissolve on September 27, 2011.
The main Opposition withheld its support for the motion, saying that government had enough time to complete all of the work on its parliamentary agenda. The Opposition had accused the government of bad management and of not fully utilising the Parliamentary Management Committee to effectively plan the parliamentary agenda.
Article 70 (3) states, “Parliament, unless sooner dissolved, shall continue for five years to the date when the Assembly first meets after any dissolution and shall then stand dissolved.”
The National Assembly is still to meet to consider the third reading of the Public Utilities Amendment Bill and the Telecommunications Bill on Thursday September 22, 2011.