GENERAL Secretary of the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Clement Rohee, has labelled leader of the Alliance For Change, Khemraj Ramjattan, “a poor student of history.”
Rohee’s rebuke to Rajattan comes in the wake of the latter describing the PPP as an “obstacle” to constitutional reform.
According to Rohee, who made his statements at his party’s weekly press conference on Monday, Ramjattan is “conveniently” forgetting history which has been recorded.
Ramjattan, who was a long-standing member of the PPP, in an interview with Kaieteur News said he believes that the PPP would not support constitutional reform, mainly because current members of the party do not believe in the separation of powers. He further expressed that: “They are power drunk and can’t think of operating without the amount of power they have now…they are enjoying the power and simply (are) not willing to give it up.”
However, the general secretary rejected these allegations, stressing that: “The PPP under Dr. Jagan initiated several rounds of Constitutional discussions in the parliament or some constitutional amendments.”
Rohee urged that Ramjattan reflect on the two historical processes of constitutional reform which lead to the establishment of the Women’s Rights Commission and the Rights of the Child Commission. Additionally, he called on Ramjattan to examine how commissions are selected and the authority the Opposition Leader now has with respect to lending or withholding support against the names of nominees of the Police Service Commission.
“All of those things came about as a result of amendments to the Burnham Constitution and we must remember those things. Now if Mr. Ramjattan conveniently wishes to forget that, well he needs to read back his history. I wouldn’t give much credence to what Mr. Ramjattan is saying,” the General Secretary noted.
Further, he was quick to point to the fact that Guyana is the only country in the Caribbean with a parliamentary structure which comprises several committees such as the Select Committee, the Parliamentary Committee and the Oversight Committee, all of which are functioning within the realm of Parliament. “We don’t have anything like that in any other parliament in the Caribbean” he said.
As such, he questioned how was it then that the constitution was amended for implementation of term limits for the presidency. “We introduced that” he boasted.
