…Party sees ‘PPP corrupt hands’ in plot to unseat government
THE People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) says former AFC Member of Parliament Charrandas Persaud was allegedly bribed by the opposition to vote with them on a no-confidence motion which was brought against the government last Friday.
Persaud has since denied the allegations. “The recent motion in Parliament must be seen in the context of the PPP and Jagdeo continued operation as if Guyana is a criminalised state. The dismantling of the criminalised state by APNU+AFC government has demonstrated progress which has earned Guyana respect within the League of Nations,” PNCR executive, Aubrey Norton told a news conference on Friday.
Norton said the motion clearly demonstrates Jagdeo’s modus operandi to continue his embrace by taking his criminal actions to a new level by bribing a sitting member of Parliament with the intention of bringing down the elected government of Guyana. “There is no doubt that this act in Parliament is an act of betrayal first and foremost, to the hundreds of thousands of Guyanese from all social backgrounds: who on May 11, 2015 took our country back by voting to end 23 years of rampant PPP corruption, arrogance, discrimination and bad governance. It should be noted that Charandass Persaud himself acknowledges the bribe by asking ‘what is wrong if I get paid?’ In his own words, he has admitted his embrace to the treacherous PPP culture of getting rich through corruption and lawlessness. The Guyanese people have seen through this plot and there is no doubt that in any elections the PPP will be defeated by APNU+AFC,” Norton said.
He said it is now pellucidly clear that Jagdeo’s obsession of wanting to control the wealth of Guyana that will emanate from oil is indicative of one who is irrational, treacherous, and willing to do anything to achieve his selfish objectives. Norton said “It is for this reason he colluded with forces in Trinidad and mobilised resources to bribe a sitting member of Parliament in pursuance of his hunger for wealth and power with the hope that the APNU+AFC Government will not be able to prosecute him and his former ministers who have criminally pillaged the Guyana treasury.”
Weighing in on the matter Prime Minister, Moses Nagamootoo also on Friday said that Speaker of the National Assembly Dr. Barton Scotland will have to review allegations that the vote by former Member of Parliament, Charrandass Persaud last Friday was procured by unlawful means.
Persaud, a former government MP voted in favour of the no-confidence motion brought against the administration by the parliamentary opposition. Several persons have expressed their views that the former back-bencher might have taken a bribe, forcing the no-confidence vote to go through. Prime Minister Nagamootoo said Persaud is not even discounting “that he was bought.” He said, however, that this will have to be addressed.
“If a vote in the National Assembly was procured by unlawful means to overthrow a constitutionally elected government that will have serious implications and the Speaker will have to address that issue. If you had a member of parliament who knew that he had lost confidence in his party or his slate, he should have indicated to the house that he no longer wanted to support his slate and he wanted to endorse another slate so that the house would know how to deal with that situation.”
The Prime Minister explained that Speaker of the House will also have to consider whether a simple 33 or 34 votes were needed for the motion to be carried. He said there is an overwhelming view that the motion needed 34 votes to pass and that this was known to the opposition. “They were privy to a legal opinion that says you needed 34. And so, they are in a quandary now how to deal with the situation because the Speaker had indicated at the last sitting that he will return on the 3rd of January to address the consequences of the votes, meaning, did it meet the threshold under the constitution for a majority?”
The prime minister said people are “coming to grips” with the reality that it is not a majority that is catered for in the standing orders, as the House regulates its own procedures.
The majority, he said, is addressed in the constitution. “So, the constitutional majority will have way more significance on how does one arrive at a majority… The formula has been one half plus one. So, if you have 64 members of the parliament, your one half would be 32 and a majority would be 33. How then can you have 33 as a majority for 65, unless you can prove that 64 is equal to 65. So, you can see already that it is producing an absurd conclusion, and the constitution would have never contemplated the creation of an absurdity,” the PM said.
To persons questioning the government’s decision to accept the ruling last Friday, the Prime Minister said the government made a decision to prevent disorder. “We accepted the ruling of the speaker, because as an attorney-at-law when a judge makes a ruling, you accept the ruling until you’re able to have that ruling withdrawn, those are things a court would do if it found it had been in error,” he said.