APNU+AFC Member of Parliament, Sherod Duncan was yesterday suspended from the next four sittings of the National Assembly after he vociferously protested a dildo remark directed at a woman MP by Local Government Minister, Nigel Dharamlall.
Speaker of the National Assembly, Manzoor Nadir suspended Duncan due to his continued outbursts during the consideration of the estimates for Budget 2022. While Dharamlall was going over the current expenditures for Region Five, he stated audibly to the MP `You got to get a dildo, that’s what you looking for”.
Incensed, Duncan shouted at the Minister, “You are a nasty fella! He is a nasty fella…” He further accused the minister of being disrespectful to the House and charged that the Speaker was condoning his behaviour.
Nadir called on Duncan on four occasions and instructed him to return to his seat, which he refused to do. The Speaker then asked that Duncan withdraw himself but again, he refused. This prompted the Speaker to move to suspend Duncan from the next four sittings of the National Assembly. Nadir said that Duncan was being disrespectful to the House, but Duncan continued to assert that he would not remove himself from the conference room at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, where the deliberations were being held.
Duncan then took to his Facebook page where he shared a clip of the Minister during the session under the title “Dharamlall is a nasty person. Degrading our female members of the Parliamentary Opposition unchecked by the speaker. I will not sit in the National Assembly and allow that.” In the clip posted of Dharamlall during the consideration of the estimates, he can be heard making the remark to a Member of Parliament seeming to be from the opposition. It is unclear in the clip, who he was speaking to.
In a statement last evening, APNU+AFC said its MPs walked out of Parliament after a day filled with continuous derogatory remarks directed at APNU+AFC female MPs by Dharamlall. It cited the dildo remark by Dharmalall and said that the Speaker made no attempt to correct or reprimand the minister.
“The female APNU+AFC MPs note that on every occasion that the Minister has to speak going back to 2020, the members on the opposition side especially the female MP’s are forced to sit and listen to the vilest of verbal abuses and racial slurs. We will not accept this”, APNU+AFC said.
It called Duncan’s suspension unfair and charged that the Speaker had consistently failed to rein in abuse of APNU+AFC female MP’s.
Last evening, Dharamlall issued the following statement “Earlier today this house, had some issues we believe became very detail, I’d like to, Mr Speaker, to indicate to you that if I had said anything that was misconstrued, that it is not my intention to make those statements to that effect. If there were statements which were also (unparliamentary) on my part during the process of the interrogations, then I would like to withdraw them as well”.
