With the Central Executive Committee (CEC) of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) yet to meet and decide on a candidate to fill the parliamentary seat to become vacant when Joseph Harmon departs on March 15, some of its members are already advocating for the return of Volda Lawrence saying her leadership is desperately needed in the House.
Lawrence is the immediate past Chairman of the PNCR and served as Minister of Public Health when the APNU+AFC Coalition was in government. In a surprise move by former President David Granger, who is the representative of the list for the main opposition, Lawrence was not selected to return to the National Assembly when the coalition lost power at the March 2020 polls.
She has since departed from the uppermost positions in the PNCR but serves as the Chair of the PNCR Women’s arm and leader of its Georgetown chapter.
“I have been working for as long as I could remember and when I was Minister I never took leave, even though I was ill. So I am just taking some time for myself and my family…I don’t want to be in this race, I am tired,” Lawrence had said back in December last year, having opted not to contest for the leadership of the party.
In 2017, Lawrence was diagnosed with cancer and underwent three surgeries that year. Additionally, she underwent chemotherapy and radiation therapy without taking a leave of absence. She said that the decision took a toll on her and she was taking a step back from the leadership roles as a result.
Harmon and former Minister of Education Dr Nicolette Henry have tendered their resignations to the Speaker of the National Assembly and so far the PNCR has identified its Leader, Aubrey Norton, as a replacement for one of the vacant seats.
A source close to the CEC says that the opposition needs Lawrence’s leadership at this time.
“The two vacancies, one is by a male and the other is by a female. To keep that gender balance (they) should be replaced by a male and a female. The executive is now looking at it and Aubrey has been identified as one of the persons and I think the other position should be filled by Volda Lawrence.
“One of the things that we are absent of in the parliament is a solid person with an accountant background. Outside [of] Carl Greenidge that person is Volda Lawrence,” the source said. Lawrence is an accountant and served as Chair of Parliament’s Public Accounts Commit-tee.
It was noted that Granger is a stickler for gender balance in the National Assembly. But Granger holds no position of leadership within the APNU and the PNCR so his role as the Representative of the APNU+AFC List is now seen as merely ceremonial. According to another party source, Granger still possesses the power to name whomever he wants to sit in the National Assembly since he remains the Representative of the APNU+AFC List.
The pro-Lawrence source, in arguing for her return to Parliament, said that the current cadre of opposition parliamentarians lacks institutional memory and knowledge along with political astuteness.
“We need someone who knows how the PPP operates, that could preempt them, that could predict them and we don’t have that currently in the House. Volda possesses that and I think for Aubrey Norton to go into the House, his focus should be mainly on the role of the Leader of the Opposition while at the same time having a senior person from within his Party who has the knowledge of accounting and the economy, who has institutional knowledge about all of these various committees of the parliament [sitting in Parliament],” the source related.
The current corps of main opposition parliamentarians consists of several first-timers, including its shadow Finance Minister Juretha Fernandes. The source, who is also a senior member of the party, said that Fernandes’ knowledge as a first-timer is limited and as a result the opposition’s ability to scrutinise the trajectory of the economy and government spending is severely inhibited.
“We have all of these committees, like the PAC [Public Accounts Committee], the Committee of Appointments, which we just dealt with [to] identify the person to come on the Board of the Natural Resource Fund…for me, the only person with that requisite background that we need that we don’t have is Volda Lawrence.
“To put somebody else in there, he or she coming in as another newbie. So you’re right back to square one. It doesn’t fill the vacuum that we currently have and that vacuum is institutional knowledge and somebody with some sort of economic background, we don’t have it. And even when Aubrey comes into the House he doesn’t have an economic background. I mean he is politically astute, he can get information but you need somebody who’s there, leaving the parliament and having a caucus as to how we should approach this and so and that is Volda Lawrence,” the senior PNCR executive said.
The source was hopeful that Lawrence is named to fill the vacant parliamentary seat and comes out of her hiatus to steer the coalition in a direction where it can better scrutinize the government and represent its supporters.
Norton is currently overseas and expected back on March 18 after which the CEC will meet to decide on the person to fill the vacant seat.
