EVEN as the Government and Opposition went head-to-head over budgetary allocations for constitutional agencies on Thursday evening in the National Assembly, Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman has given commitment that the Human Rights Commission will be set up by the end of 2016.The subject of the debate was the budgetary allocations for various constitutional agencies and whether the Government had the right to counter sums of money initially proposed by those bodies through Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chairperson Irfaan Ali.

According to Mr Trotman, the Human Rights Commission has not functioned fully in Guyana “except on paper in the Constitution”. Trotman told the House that Thursday evening was the first time in 15 years that money had been included in the budget for the agency’s work.

Mr Trotman, Speaker of the National Assembly in the 10th Parliament, said the action “shows the intention of this Government to ensure that, by the end of 2016, there shall be, for the first time in the history of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, a Human Rights Commission”.

This position did not sit well with Opposition Chief Whip Gail Teixeira, who not only challenged Finance Minister Winston Jordan’s holding direct responsibility, even in the “token sense”, over the financing of these agencies, but also challenged whether the various sums of money for these agencies could be adjusted AT THE Finance Minister’s recommendation.

As part of the David Granger Administration’s legislative agenda when it came into power in 2015, amendments were made to the Constitution as well as the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act (FMA). The extent of those amendments was to allow constitutional agencies like the Rights Commissions, GECOM, Parliament Office, and the Supreme Court to draw money directly from the Treasury.

GOOD GOVERNANCE

On the Constitution amendments, Attorney General Basil Williams, said: “This legislation raises a question of good governance, and it seeks to restore due constitutionality at the independence of certain constitutional commissions and bodies.

“The expenditure of each of the entities shall be financed as a direct charge on the Consolidated Fund determined as a lump sum by way of an annual subvention approved by the National Assembly”.

Finance Minister Winston Jordan noted the importance of giving constitutional agencies their financial autonomy.

In Thursday’s sitting of the House, Opposition Chief Whip Gail Teixeira recalled that before the amendments made by the coalition government to those two laws, “monies for [the] Human Rights Commission and other commissions was included as subvention items under the Ministry of Finance.”

On the composition of the Human Rights Commission, Teixeira said, “The Human Rights Commission is made of the chairpersons of the ERC (Ethnic Relations Commission), Rights of the Child, Women and Gender [Equality Commission], [and the] IPC (Indigenous People’s Commission).”

The Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission, she continued, “is brought about by the President after having received six names submitted by the Leader of the Opposition.”

LAPSE
Teixeira lashed out at the David Granger Administration for the missed attempts by now-President Granger, when he was Opposition Leader from 2011-2015, to submit six names to then-President Donald Ramotar of her party.

She similarly chided the Administration for those names not being submitted by then-Opposition Leader Robert Corbin of the People’s National Congress (PNC), following the 2002 Constitution amendments, to then-President Bharrat Jagdeo, who is now the Opposition Leader.

“As an employee of the Office of the President (now the Ministry of the Presidency) at that time, I am cognisant of the number of letters sent to the then-Leader of the Opposition, Mr Corbin. The then-Leader of the Opposition, Mr Granger, and I have all the letters electronically that show attempts over and over,” Teixeira continued.

She noted that proof of her remarks could be accessed by State Minister Joseph Harmon, who is also the Head of the Presidential Secretariat.

The Opposition Chief Whip is calling on the Government, specifically President David Granger, to approach her party’s Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo, for the six names to be considered for the chairpersonship of the commission; a list from which the President must choose one.

Until that action is taken, Teixeira added, the Human Rights Commission will serve as a secretariat for the other commissions. On the importance of the Human Rights Commission, Teixeira said the body “takes care of all other civil rights and political rights [issues] that are not mentioned under…the other commissions.”

While Government MP Trotman rose to apologise for his statements, asserting it was not his intention to mislead the House, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo accused the Opposition party of not activating the Human Rights Commission even when it was in government, although there were “death squads” and even the burning of the genitals of a teenage boy by ranks at the Leonora Police Station.

By Derwayne Wills