PPP/C must meet dialogue commitments before PNC/R cooperates - Carberry
Stabroek News
May 10, 2002
At a minimum the PPP/Civic administration must meet its outstanding obligations under the dialogue and constitution reform processes if the PNC/R is to resume cooperating with it.
This was the response to a question from the Stabroek News by PNC/R Chief Whip Lance Carberry at a Congress Place press conference yesterday.
Carberry was adamant that "there is really no earthly reason why the issue of the establishment of the Parliamentary Management Committee (PMC) cannot be settled.
"And really the government doesn't have a position of principle. It is simply a case of obduracy that we are facing."
Carberry asserted that the government arguments that the PNC/R wanted to dominate the PPP and that it wanted parity with the government were facile, reiterating that of the proposed ten-member body, the PPP/C would have five members, the PNC/R would have three members and ROAR and GAP/WPA would have one member each.
Also, he explained that as a Standing Committee of the parliament the PNC/R would be subject to the rules of the National Assembly and as such the committee would have no special powers.
"It is really an amazing exercise that the government is engaged in and I think that really all that is happening is that the government is demonstrating its bad faith."
Asked to react to the announcement by Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon, that Members' Day would be reinstated, Carberry pointed out the Standing Orders provided for Wednesdays to be devoted to such business but that the administration had consistently avoided convening the National Assembly on that day.
Among the outstanding obligations the PNC/R wanted the government to meet are the constitution of the four parliamentary sectoral committees about which there is disagreement as to whether ministers should be included as members; the constitution of the Ethnic Relations Commission which the government claims had been hindered by the inaction of the former Clerk of the National Assembly; the tabling of the White Paper on Land Allocation due since December 31, 2000 and which was laid yesterday; and the electrification of De Kinderen, West Coast Demerara which the government says must await the completion of its regularisation.