Last week AFC President Cathy Hughes said at her party’s weekly press conference that parliamentary scrutiny of government was being hindered by the fact that certain key committees were not functioning. Whether that view is shared by the major segment of the opposition is open to question, but for her part Ms Hughes expressed the view that it was through Parliamentary Committees that equal participation could be achieved. We reported her as saying that the committees discussed issues of national importance, facilitated robust debates, and operated with the aim of achieving consensus on national issues. While in an ideal world no one would quarrel with this, in our very real world it must be said that neither side of the political divide is showing any disposition towards consensus.
There are various parliamentary mechanisms already in existence for the purposes of including all sides in the processes of government, including five standing committees. These cover constitutional reform, natural resources, economic services, social services and foreign relations. The committees are technically not impotent; they can examine all the policies and administration of a relevant sector to find out whether government policy is being executed according to the principles of good governance and in the best interest of all the people of the country. Among other things, they can request a Minister of Government to make an oral or written submission, scrutinize government documents, summon persons to give evidence, utilize the expertise of specialists and make recommendations to the National Assembly.
They are required to submit periodic reports to the National Assembly on their work, and within a period of sixty days of such a report being presented, the government should table a comprehensive response when requested by the committee concerned.
Ms Hughes was quoted as saying: “[W]e find it reprehensible and unacceptable that several parliamentary sectoral committees are comatose or have never seen the light of day more than two years later. At the most critical time in this nation’s history, at a time when we face a rapidly developing oil and gas sector, one which is currently plagued by a lack of transparency in the publishing of government contracts and feasibility studies, the Natural Resources committee has never met.”
It might be mentioned that to all appearances the government does not want it to meet; at the time of the passage of the controversial Natural Resource Fund Bill, for example, the PPP/C used its majority of one in Parliament to ensure the proposed legislation was not referred to the committee. Their indefensible approach was obscured because of the outrageous behaviour of the opposition in its futile attempts to prevent the Bill from being passed.
The AFC Vice President made reference to other committees, including the Foreign Relations Committee which has never been convened, notwithstanding the fact that our case in relation to the validity of the 1899 Award is at the International Court of Justice. Then despite the high cost of living the Economic Services Committee had been waiting since March to resume under a new chair. (Under the rules the chairs are rotated.) She also adverted to the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on the Security Sector, whose responsibility encompasses the Disciplined Forces. “With rapidly increasing crime,” she said, “the security sector committee has never met.”
Ms Hughes was in no doubt as to who was responsible for this, namely Speaker Manzoor Nadir. “The fact that the Speaker has been too busy with his many various overseas trips to deal with these serious transgressions and get his real work done, is alarming and most unfortunate,” she declared. There is no doubt where the matter of the Speaker is concerned she speaks for APNU as well. She went on to voice criticisms about which the other segment of the coalition has been even more vocal. She said that he had tried to virtually silence the opposition either by denying or gutting their motions and questions. Where the motions are concerned she cited those on the high cost of living and massive flooding as having been struck out so they could not be discussed by MPs elected to represent the people of Guyana.
“Questions to the House continue to be butchered not edited and often lack a timely response. All this is in addition to the infrequent sittings which indirectly silence debate on important issues, for example, private members’ day – which occurs every 4th sitting when opposition issues are examined can take months now to come around. The subjective way issues are dealt with continues to suggest bias,” she said. This is far from being the first trenchant complaint against the Speaker. The opposition has in the past frequently called for his resignation, and has submitted a motion of no confidence against him.
While there is no doubt that of all the Speakers this country has had over the decades, Mr Nadir is the least impressive and the one who appears most unsure about what the post entails, it does not mean to say that every decision he makes is the wrong one in terms of a reasonable approach. A few days ago he would not entertain a motion brought by Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton for an urgent hearing on what the latter described as a bloated voters’ list for the local government elections.
The opposition in general and APNU in particular has tethered itself to the fabrication that the 2020 election was fraudulent, and part of that fantasy is connected to the matter of the voters’ list. It has allowed the false story about the poll to dominate its strategy in relation to the government, so this has distorted its approach, leaving issues which are far more critical for the future of this country unaddressed, or only addressed spasmodically or on an ad hoc basis.
In the case of the bloated voters’ list motion denial, the opposition walked out of the Chamber just before the debate on the Constitution Reform Commission Bill commenced, something which surely they should have made some contribution on since it will pave the way for the establishment of a commission to review Guyana’s Constitution. So much for respect for the role of Parliament and, it might be added, the interests of their constituents. As it was AG Anil Nandlall had a field day, expressing his disappointment that after not making any contributions to the consultations about the draft, the opposition had now absented itself from the parliamentary debate.
Leader of the LJP Lenox Shuman was in agreement saying that constitutional reform “is not and should not be a political football.” For his part he did have an amendment to suggest in relation to the Indigenous peoples’ representation on the commission, one which the AG said the government would entertain. All that can be said now is that the opposition have no basis on which to complain if they do not like the composition of the commission.
The thing about certain critical sections of the Constitution is that their amendment will require a two-thirds parliamentary majority, thus the cooperation of the opposition will be required for this to be accomplished. Where the opposition is concerned, it will need to have in its mind the trend of reforms it would like to see, and what its constituents would like to see. There is no evidence at the moment it has put its mind to constitutional matters at all, even although, as Mr Shuman pointed out, every political party in this country committed itself to constitutional reform in its manifesto.
Of course, as the case of the standing committees of Parliament demonstrates, the fact that there are mechanisms in place to facilitate scrutiny of government, and achieve a political consensus does not mean that these will be allowed to function as they are supposed to. It would help, of course, if there were some reforms to make Parliament a full-time job for MPs and if they were paid accordingly, in addition to which they had professional researchers to help them, as is the case in larger democracies. However, that is certainly not going to happen in the short-term.
Nevertheless, since the vexed question of the Constitution is going to preoccupy the nation for the next few months, and since it will require a degree of compromise and conciliation on the part of the political players they are not evincing at the moment, perhaps they might start getting into practice by doing what Ms Hughes suggests, and resuscitate the parliamentary standing committees. The Speaker should be advised.
