FOLLOWING the latest fallout in the House yesterday over a proposed amendment to Guyana’s Firearm Laws, Leader of the Opposition and Government representatives traded vitriolic barbs over the move to block the Bill.
Leader of the Parliamentary Opposition, Brigadier (rtd) David Granger,

told media operatives that the move was meant to send a message to the executive arm of government.
“We took this action to demonstrate to the Executive that we are determined that he (Rohee) is not going to remain there”.
Granger said that regardless of the merits of the proposed legislation, it will not be approved by the opposition as long as it is piloted by Rohee.
“We will not approve any,” said Granger in relation to Bills presented and have been presented and await debate by the Minister of Home Affairs.
Granger argued that “there is a greater danger in having Rohee remain as minister with responsibility for public security…We are seeing it everyday.”
The Leader of the Parliamentary Opposition said that the presence of Minister Rohee was a greater threat to the public security.
The position held by the combined opposition was however roundly condemned as ‘reprehensible insanity’ by Government’s Chief Whip Gail Teixeira.
She said that Granger’s position was “bizarre.”
According to Teixeira, who was at the time also addressing media operatives, along with Prime Minister, Samuel Hinds, it is an “absolute level of insanity to say that in this country.”
Teixeira reminded of the Police Officers conference which also opened yesterday and said that one of the critical issues on the agenda of the hierarchy of the Police Force is the matter of firearm trafficking and its impact on crime in Guyana.
She reminded that the amendments presented in the Bill were an attempt to “fill a lacuna in the law.”
According to Teixeira, the opposition rejecting the motion “flies in the face of all decent minded people,” who are in opposition to the crime situation in Guyana.
She suggested that if it is a case where the Bill was rejected merely because of the messenger, meaning the Minister of Home Affairs, “this is the height of puerile, childish, little boy behaviour in a playground.”
“What is priority,” questioned Teixeira and she reminded that the opposition has been pontificating for ages on the need to “reduce crime in our country”.
She said that whatever can be done from a national point of view should be supported and again lashed out at the combined opposition stance on the bill, saying that “it is most reprehensible …vulgar and disgusting.”
Texieria was adamant that for the opposition to vote down the Firearm (Amendment) Bill demonstrates that “they are puerile…they are missing the point”.
She insisted that the matter of security should galvanise all to act, inclusive of civil society and not just in the political sphere.
“We must do the best we can with what we have…Again we are seeing anti-national positions that have nothing to do with the betterment of the country”.
Prime Minister Hinds, who also lamented the position adopted by the combined opposition to the Bill, reminded of Guyana’s international obligations in the crime fight particularly, as it relates to the illicit arms trade.
“If they are in any way serious about all their claims on the crime fight and against trafficking in arms, I don’t see how they could reject it,”
He said that the opposition would on many occasions tend to make a lot of noise about government not partnering with others in the crime fight and “again they reject something, an obligation in our joint fight”.
Teixeira said that government will now have seek an avenue to have the Bill return to the House within the life of the current Parliament, and lamented also that the regional weapon marking strategy will also be adversely affected as result of the voted down piece of legislation.