Ramsammy urges Jagdeo/Hoyte meet on unimplemented constititution reforms
Stabroek News
August 31, 2002
The PPP/Civic wants the PNC/R to reconvene the dialogue between the President and Opposition Leader to deal with the issues which are holding up the implementation of constitutional reform measures. This plea was made by Health Minister, Dr Leslie Ramsammy, when he addressed the discussion forum organised by the Guyana Human Rights Association on Thursday evening at the National Library Auditorium. But Lance Carberry, the Opposition Chief Whip, reiterated the PNC/R's position that its leader, Desmond Hoyte, would not resume the dialogue until the decisions already taken were implemented.
Making the case for the resumption of the dialogue at least for the limited purpose of addressing the issues related to the parliamentary sectoral committees, Ramsammy argued that "there is considerable room for compromises" and he suspected that "one meeting [between Hoyte and Jagdeo] could resolve the impasse." Ramsammy said that the impasse was on the issue of ministers being members of the parliamentary sector committees, which the government is advocating and which the opposition parties are against.
He contended that the "government's position is based on pragmatic considerations: leaving out the Cabinet members means that the government has 14 members to use in the four standing committees. "Selecting six members would mean that all 14 would have to serve on more than one committee. The President has requested a consideration of reducing the size of the committee or for us to consider more technocrats on the Cabinet." But Carberry dismissed this contention pointing out that already parliamentarians serve on more than one committee. And in response to the suggestion that the size of the committees should be reduced, Carberry said his party would be willing to look at any sensible proposal about the size of the committees that the government puts forward.
The two sides have agreed that the committees would each have 11 members - six representing the government and five representing the parliamentary opposition. The parties, which make up the parliamentary opposition, are the PNC/R, GAP/WPA and ROAR. The other two have not joined the PNC/R in the boycott of the parliament. Another hurdle in the way of agreement on the amendments that would reform parliament is the parliamentary management committee to manage the affairs of the National Assembly including its agenda for the various sessions.
The establishment of the parliamentary management committee was first recommended in the St Lucia Statement signed at the 1998 CARICOM Summit. Then president Janet Jagan and Hoyte were signatories to it and its establishment was to have been implemented as a matter of priority. In 2001, during the dialogue sessions, the establishment of the committee was one of the decisions taken. At issue here is the opposition's position that there should be equal representation on the ten-member committee. The government contends that if there was equal representation, the government's parliamentary programme could be obstructed. Responding to a member of the audience who contended that the opposition if given equal representation could prevent the party which wins a majority in parliament from implementing its programme, Carberry denied that this could happen. He pointed out that the committee is a standing committee of the parliament and its recommendation(s) could be overruled by parliament where the ruling party would have a majority of the members. Carberry also pointed to the absence of any budgetary allocation for increasing the capacity of the Parliament Office to support the work of the committees and the parliament as whole.
Dr Ramsammy did not see the omission as grievous as he said that supplementary provisions could always be made. But this drew criticism not only from Carberry but also members of the audience who questioned whether the rules pertaining to the use of the consolidated funds had been changed. They argued that the supplementary provisions are intended for unforeseen expenditure, explaining that increasing capacity could not be done overnight. Conceding that expanding capacity is not achieved overnight Ramsammy suggested that there could be an incremental approach.
There were also questions from the audience about the need to prepare parliamentarians to operate more efficiently when the committees are established to which Ram-sammy conceded that there was need for programmes to be put in place to help with the research parliamentarians had to do. There were also appeals from members of the audience for the parties to work out their differences as their failure to do so would mean the failure of all Guyana.