ALLOWING the sitting of the National Assembly on Monday, the first post-recess sitting, and having the combined Opposition fulfill their promise of passing a no-confidence motion against the current Administration is not a risk the President would have taken.This was according to Head of the Presidential Secretariat (HPS), Dr. Roger Luncheon, who stated that even if a debate had ensured on the Alliance For Change (AFC) sponsored no-confidence motion the outcome of a dissolved Parliament would not have been altered.

“The President was not interested in taking the risk of trying to persuade the pharaohs, whose hearts had already been hardened,” he said.
The HPS underscored the fact that the President acted in the interest of the people of Guyana to ensure the life of the 10th Parliament, which has a number of critical issues that are of national importance before it.
“The likelihood of an adequate defence would more than likely not altered the outcome…we have strong reason to believe that there wasn’t any likelihood that reason would prevail and a well argument against no-confidence, in the face of the one-seat majority and the verbiage that greeted Guyanese and the administration…the outcome was certain,” Dr. Luncheon said.
With the decision to prorogue Parliament, there is a chance that through dialogue Parliamentary normalcy can return and the important issues can once more engage the attention of the Members of Parliament.
The effect of ending a session by prorogation is to terminate business. Members are released from their parliamentary duties until Parliament is next summoned. All unfinished business is dropped from or “dies” on the Order Paper, the National Assembly’s agenda, and all committees lose their power to transact business, providing a fresh start for the next session. No committee can sit during a prorogation. Bills which have not received Royal Assent before prorogation are “entirely terminated” and, in order to be proceeded with in the new session, must be reintroduced as if they had never existed.
“If parliamentary normalcy is restored to the Parliament, the issues before it can return to the agenda,” he said.
Dr. Luncheon stressed too that prorogation, like the President’s option to dissolve Parliament, are all constitutional provisions, of which he chose prorogation.
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
“There are a whole host of unfinished business that this 10th Parliament has progressed from its initial sitting in 2012 and to irrevocably and irreversibly rub that out was something none of us in the Administration could have stomached, not without a fight, not without another effort…the records will show that the PPP/C Administration did all that was constitutionally possible and all that reasonably could have been done, we went the extra effort, to avoid such a situation,” the HPS concluded.