The ‘new dispensation’ and aftermath of hurricane APNU/PNC/AFC

THE puerile, deconstructive, destructive, obstructive, egomaniac opposition politics has made the hallowed House of Guyana’s august National Assembly a parody rather than an assembly of national leaders who work for the good of the citizens of the land.The ‘new dispensation’ in Parliament, created by a six-votes, one-seat combined majority of the conjoined political Opposition parties, has given them muscle-flexing powers; because apparently it is muscle and not brains that are shaping this new parliamentary dispensation.
And the mandate given to them by their constituents to oversee their best interests in the nation’s legislative assembly is trampled on daily, merely because of egomania, vengefulness, power-hunger, self-interest and self-aggrandizement at every level – all subsuming the general good and the national interest.
The recent fracas in the House over Education Minister Priya Manickchand’s almost sotto voce’ heckle is a case in point. This minister represents the educational interests of the children of the land – even Opposition supporters’ children; and she was effectively muzzled, first by House Speaker Raphael Trotman, then by the pandemonium created in the House by his political affiliates in the Opposition when he was forced to rescind his gag order.

Is it any wonder that citizens are clamouring for new elections so that a Government majority could once more hold sway over a developmental-obstructionist Opposition whose destructive tactics are wrecking anarchy in the House?

Their subsequent walk-out of Parliament during the Minister’s presentation merely reinforces the foregoing. Supporting C.N. Sharma, an accused serial child-rapist was more important to them than the interests of the nation’s children.
Forcing the minister to apologise for an ethical dilemma is the joint Opposition’s two-faced hypocrisy. APNU MP Volda Lawrence was speaking to the issue of victims of pedophiles being denied justice. Minister Priya was Minister of Social Welfare and Human Services when the story broke out about the serial rapes of the children and she witnessed first-hand the agony and the destruction of the lives of the victims, who until today cannot receive justice because the alleged perpetrator has money and political support from the Opposition, including APNU/WPA women’s arm Red Thread and GHRA, so her innocuous, sotto voce comment: “ask your APNU member Sharma”, was instinctive. Unless Jaipaul Sharma has secrets like his father he would have known that the remarks were not directed at him. C.N. Sharma is an accused serial child-rapist and a public figure so why did the minister have to apologise to Jaipaul Sharma?
Lawrence, who was so concerned about injustice to victims of pedophiles, joined her colleagues in victimising Minister Manickchand for referencing the most infamous Guyanese alleged pedophile, displaying her hypocrisy and the shallowness inherent in her party. It is being conjectured by the public on social media sites that Speaker Raphael Trotman was seemingly fearful of losing the free television programme time given to his party by the Sharmas that he ranted and raved at Priya, silencing her when she tried to explain that it was C.N. Sharma and not sitting member Jaipaul Sharma she was referencing.

The Sharmas attack Government ministers, and allow their party affiliates to do so non-stop on their television programmes, with all kinds of terrible but unfounded accusations; but Trotman unconscionably forced Priya to compromise her integrity and apologise to Jaipaul Sharma, for God knows what, just so she could put the greater priority above her self-respect and subsume her integrity and personal ethics; and that was addressing the business of the nation’s children. This is the kind of political maturity of which the joint Opposition is incapable.
The drama being enacted by Jaipaul Sharma is merely an excuse for him to scuttle away from the looming threat of his having to make a contribution in the parliamentary debates, which he himself admits, because he is too mentally challenged; but he is camouflaging this fact under a façade of decency and victimisation. Where is the decency of Jaipaul Sharma when he curses and makes unfounded allegations about Government ministers and functionaries and their relatives every day on CNS Ch. 6? Yet he objects to Priya’s passing reference to his father. What double standards. Greenidge advises him what to say on his own television station, which exposes him for the lackey boy he is, or was in the APNU/PNC/AFC combo.
The annexation of the Speaker’s seat was the first act of bullyism by the Opposition as a result of their one-seat majority.
The unprecedented events of November 22, 2012 is no less than anarchy in the highest law-making forum in the land, condoned and even encouraged by the Speaker, AFC co-founder Raphael Trotman, whose office dictates that he remains impartial at all times; but whom has instead subverted, bastardised and prostituted the Parliament of Guyana by unconscionably showing partiality to his own party and the APNU, to which the AFC has now unapologetically become affiliated, through rulings that unpardonably hold the Government to ransom, so that it has to resort for justice in the courts, at great cost to the taxpayers of Guyana.
The first power play by the joint Opposition, wielding its combined one-seat majority like a sword of vengeance in the National Assembly, saw the two parties annexing both positions of Speaker and Deputy Speaker; which contravenes all parliamentary norms and practices.

PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES NOW A WEAPON TO DESTROY GOVERNMENT
The Parliamentary bullyism continued unabated, and the Government reported, inter alia: “At the February 10th sitting, the members of the Standing Committee of Selection were nominated on the floor of the House by both Government and Opposition parties. The two Opposition parties (APNU and AFC) by motion reduced the size of the Committee from 10 members with the Speaker as chair to 9 with 4 for the Government, and, 5 (4 APNU and 1 AFC) for the Opposition, with the Speaker as the Chair. This was voted on and adopted by a majority vote of one.
Since then the accepted norms and practices of the Committee of Selection have been under attack and its function grossly compromised.
At the first meeting of the Committee of Selection chaired by the Speaker on February 24, 2012, the combined Opposition parties used their majority on the Committee to establish new rules on the composition of the parliamentary committees.
The Parliamentary Opposition ruled based on what they called the “new dispensation in the National Assembly” that the Opposition would have the majority of seats on all committees and the number of seats on each committee, unless otherwise specified, would be reduced from 10 to 9 seats. They proposed a formula of 4-4-1 and voted by majority for 9 seats on all committees with 4 for the PPP/C (with 49.3% of the electorate), 4 for the A.P.N.U. ( with 40% of the electorate) and 1 for the A.F.C.( 10.3 % of the electorate).
The Government had also made a proposal at the meeting for parity on the committees based on the new situation in the National Assembly of 5 seats for the government and 5 seats for the combined Opposition, 4 for APNU and 1 for AFC. The Government argued that its proposal was closer to the electoral results than the combined Opposition’s proposal.
However, this was rejected. With that, by vote of a combined majority, the Government’s representation on all committees, which the Standing Orders provided for “no less than 6, no more than 10 members” was now reduced to a minority.
In fact, the combined Opposition parties now have disproportional representation on the 9 member committees of 54 %, which they neither individually (40% APNU with 26 seats and 10% AFC with 7 seats) nor collectively attained at the polls and the Government has 40 % of the representation on the committees, which is below its 49.2% of the polls.”
On March 13, 2012 the Speaker proceeded to hold the first meeting of the appointed committees to elect the chairpersons which other than those chaired by the Speaker became controlled by the APNU, the major Opposition party.
It was apparent to everyone that the farce being enacted at every session in Parliament over the last two years is fully rehearsed at secretive extra-parliamentary sessions by the joint Opposition then played out in the National Assembly, with the House becoming a parliamentary theatre.
This is because almost all of their actions are in discord with the Constitution and/or standard parliamentary norms and conventions.
Unlike the dynamism that prevailed in parliamentary committees convened; and most especially chaired by the Government pre-elections of 2011, parliamentary committees of the current dispensation, even those chaired by the Speaker, are either not functioning, or doing so in a desultory, lackadaisical manner, which goes to prove that they only want the power, but not the responsibility and hard work that goes with it.

ANARCHY IN HOUSE ESCALATING
Even the time-honoured parliamentary practice and Standing Orders’ provisions that allow the Government to independently set the date for sittings has been overturned when the joint Opposition, on March 15, 2012, voted down the Prime Minister when he set a date for the next sitting via a motion tabled and seconded by the APNU.

Almost every ruling and at each parliamentary sitting the joint Opposition seem bent on stymieing national development in one way or another, and a Government report stated, inter alia: “As provided for by the Constitution, the Minister of Finance is allowed to utilise monies from the Contingency Fund in certain prescribed circumstances, including between the period of dissolution of the Parliament for elections and its reconvening, and is required to bring these Supplementary Financial Papers (SPs) as soon as the National Assembly is reconstituted.
“The Minister of Finance, Dr. Ashni Singh, tabled 2 Supplementary Financial Papers (SPs) on February 10, 2012. On February 16, 2012, during the debate on these SPs, the APNU and the AFC withheld approval or negativized a number of sub-heads on one of the papers, thus leaving a charge of Gy$79 million unauthorized. More interesting is that the Opposition parties did not submit to the normal procedures required to bring amendments to these SPs. Despite efforts by the Government in writing to Speaker and on the floor of the House, the Speaker allowed these actions to proceed.
“Normal parliamentary convention does not support leaving a charge on the Contingency Fund. One SP was passed as amended. The second paper, was postponed after a motion by 2 APNU and AFC Members to withdraw the paper, was put in abeyance by the Speaker.
The Speaker declared at the end of the sitting, that he would allow the Minister to return to the House with another SP for the items where expenditure was not authorised.
“At the March 15, 2012 sitting, the Speaker, in response to the Government’s protests about the treatment of the first SP not being in order by parliamentary convention and norms, ruled that the treatment of the first paper, despite leaving a charge of the Contingency Funds, was in order. The second paper was passed by 31 for, 26 opposed and 7 declined to vote.
The Minister of Finance then returned to the National Assembly on June 14, 2012 to address the outstanding charge of $79M by way of a Supplementary Financial Paper and after much wrangling and procedural arguments, the Speaker allowed the SP to be again considered and again not approved.

Thus their ploy of starving the Government of funds to do developmental works and enhance the social paradigm was revealed though these vindictive acts, notwithstanding the fact that these monies were used to provide increases to public servants and police ranks, for payments to elections field staff and additional expenditures for the Police Force, to alleviate flooding in Regions 5 and 6, to run the country while Parliament was prorogued, and provide other necessary social services in the country, including land development for the Specialty Hospital meant to provide tertiary care at affordable prices to patients with life-threatening illnesses.
This, then, along with their recalcitrance over the passage of the very vital amended AML/CFT Bill and other acts of obstructionist politics, is the joint Opposition’s way of making Guyana ungovernable under a PPP/C Government.
Is it any wonder that citizens are clamouring for new elections so that a Government majority could once more hold sway over a developmental-obstructionist Opposition whose destructive tactics are wrecking anarchy in the House?