CABINET Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon has deemed recent remarks made by the Honourable Raphael Trotman, Speaker of the National Assembly, a public and definitive statement as regards Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee’s right to speak in Parliament. He thinks there is now every reason to believe that the matter has been concluded in accordance with respect to the Constitution of Guyana.

Speaking at his weekly post-Cabinet press conference yesterday, Dr Luncheon disclosed that the Acting Chief Justice is expected to rule on the substantive action brought by the Attorney General with respect to the denial of Minister Rohee’s constitutional rights; and Cabinet is anticipating, even expectantly, that the “soundness” of the Speaker’s contention would prevail, and that it would be even more endorsed at the level of extra-parliamentary engagements among the parliamentary political parties.
At last week’s presser, the Cabinet Secretary had lamented the disregard of convention and abuse of parliamentary protocols that he said were “relentlessly undermining the sacred rule of Parliament.”
Commenting on the most recent sitting of the National Assembly, he had remarked: “The happenings merely confirmed Cabinet’s worst fears about the current evolution of this national institution. How else can the ongoing parliamentary activities be characterised?” he had asked, and had added that Guyanese are forced to accept the disrespect shown in the House by an assembly of MPs (Members of Parliament) “doing their own thing” to the extent that the constructive work of Parliament has been made to languish.
Continuing, he said: “Irrationality is evident in the happenings in Parliament, combined with the cost of running Parliament, (which) is also skyrocketing with the provision of goods and services increasing geometrically over that of previous years.”