By Shaquawn Gill
The National Assembly on Thursday officially approved the report of the Committee of Privileges, which recommends the suspension of eight Opposition Members of Parliament (MPs).
Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Minister, Gail Teixeira, implored the now suspended Opposition Members of Parliament to take time to sit and rethink their actions that degraded the hallow halls of the House on December 29 last.

“I hope that you will not see this as just another battle to win, but to sit and think quietly: ‘Was it all worth it’? What badge of honour have you gotten out of this behaviour and what example have you given to the Guyanese people and young people who saw that tape?” Minister Teixeira said.
The suspended MPs are Opposition Chief Whip, Christopher Jones, Sherod Duncan, Natasha Singh-Lewis, Annette Ferguson, Vinceroy Jordan, Tabitha Sarabo-Halley, Ganesh Mahipaul and Maureen Philadelphia.

During the chaos, Ferguson made an attempt to steal the Speaker’s Mace; she was immediately joined by some of her other colleagues. This unprecedented act was foiled by a clerk of the House, who managed to secure the instrument, to which he held on tightly as he laid on the floor of the conference centre while having to contend with a torrent of verbal abuse from MP Philadelphia.

Human walls had to be formed around the Mace to keep it in place and Minister Singh to enable him to present the second reading of the bill. Following the mayhem, a motion, tabled by Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Minister, Gail Teixeira, was passed in the National Assembly in January for the eight elected officials to be referred to the Privileges Committee for their actions which were caught on camera and live-streamed across multiple social media channels.

Attorney-General, Anil Nandall in recent “Issues in the News” programme, condemned the behaviour of the APNU+AFC parliamentarians who were involved in the ruckus in the House.
“They were shouting and screaming and behaving in the most vulgar and in the most outrageous manner as everyone of you would have seen streamed live from the Parliament website, in their attempt to prevent [Senior Finance Minister] Ashni Singh from presenting his debate for the Natural Resource Bill.

When that failed, they breakup the loud speaker system in the Parliament; when that failed, they grabbed the Mace; they broke it and they tried to run away, out of the Parliament with it. And then after the whole world saw that, and as if that was not enough, they turned around and filed proceedings against the government, claiming that the government prevented them from speaking and that the Speaker prevented them from speaking.” he had said.