There is a call for the setting up of a Code of Conduct for local Members of Parliament, if there is none, in the wake of Minister of Local Government Kellawan Lall’s rum shop brawl and shooting incident.
Stabroek News could not ascertain whether there is any code for Guyana’s MPs; some long-serving and new members told this newspaper they have never seen one. “There might be a handbook around, I am told but I have never seen it,” one sitting MP said. Stabroek News found no reference to any on the Guyana Parliament website.
Maxine Davidson, a letter writer to the Stabroek News, said in a letter published on November 30, that the Guyana Parliament on behalf of Guyanese must have the capacity to hold ministers accountable for their behaviour and conduct as representatives of the people. There must be a process that would employ consequences to those ministers and MPs who display deplorable conduct. “If there is none now, then a Code of Conduct should be implemented forthwith. Can integrity and accountability ever become a common element in the delivery of public service under this current government?” she asked.
The private settlement of the matter, she contended, encourages human rights abuses, the lack of confidence in the Guyana judicial system, government and business corruption.
Apart from the condemnation of Lall’s actions by the PNCR, AFC and GAP-ROAR and a call for an explanation for his alleged conduct, there were many letters in the media from a wide cross section of the readership.
Freed political activist Mark Benschop, in a letter to this newspaper published on December 23, said he was not surprised by President Bharrat Jagdeo’s and Ramotar’s utterances on the incident but he was shocked that PNCR Leader Robert Corbin, “has decided to sit on the sidelines and observe the situation while suggesting that the people would have to censure Kellawan Lall.”
Calling on Corbin to do better, he said it was the PNCR’s duty to ensure that Lall was removed and once he took the lead, Guyanese would follow.
Observing the law
Letter writer Leon O Rockcliffe, said the time for Lall making an explanation to the public on the issue elapsed several weeks ago. As a concerned member of the public for whose protection the criminal laws of this country were enacted by Parliament, he said the incident concerned all Guyanese and not only Lall and Joseph Doodnauth, the 19-year-old who Lall allegedly assaulted with his gun.
“Those laws concern all of us who have a right to expect that the legal provisions for a stable, respectful, and orderly social environment will be observed not only by those who, like Mr Lall, make them, but also by the police who are paid to ensure their proper application.”
Noting that the PPP has in its midst several decent persons who ordinarily enjoy his personal regard, he asked whether they were prepared “by their apparent passivity to bear the ignominy that automatically devolves on them as they tolerate among their number someone so disrespectful of the very laws they help to make and so insensitive to the insistent demands of basic decency?”
On December 14, Lawrence Persaud wondered “where we are heading when those in authority, who ought to set examples for posterity, are openly and fragrantly violating the rule of law. Let us not forget that Mr Lall is a law maker. He sits in the Guyana Parliament with others and makes the laws of Guyana
