President should reveal dialogue proposal put to Hoyte - Holder
Stabroek News
May 17, 2002
GAP/WPA parliamentarian, Sheila Holder is calling on President Bharrat Jagdeo to disclose the proposal he made to PNC/R leader, Desmond Hoyte, when they met on the appointment of the commissioner of police.
A release from the Guyana Information Service on Saturday said that the President disclosed in an interview with Prime News Editor Adam Harris, that he had suggested to Hoyte that they re-engage in dialogue to resolve the impasse on the parliamentary committees. The proposal was made to Hoyte when he called on the President "to talk about the appointment of Mr Winston Felix as commissioner of police."
However, at a Congress Place press conference on Tuesday, Hoyte said that he had restricted his exchanges with the President to Felix's appointment and suggested that proposals for resolving the impasse should be discussed by their representatives - Parliamentary Affairs Minister, Reepu Daman Persaud and PNC/R Chief Whip, Lance Carberry.
Hoyte observed, "it is interesting to note from the reports given me by Mr Carberry that what he (Jagdeo) floated there had not been reiterated by Mr Reepu Daman Persaud."
In a release to the press on Monday, Holder said that the disclosure by the President was needed to clear the air as "positions reportedly taken at the leadership level between President Jagdeo and the leader of the PNC/R, Mr Desmond Hoyte appear not to have been accurately represented.
"With the pressing importance of appointments to the service commissions looming, the WPA calls on President Jagdeo to clear the air on what he proposed to Mr Hoyte when they last met on the appointment of the Commissioner of Police, in an effort to resolve the impasse on the Parliamentary Sector Committees and the Parliamentary Management Committee", the release added.
The GINA release said that last week the President wrote to Hoyte pointing out that since their representatives were unable to reach agreement, the "two of us should meet. I think we can have a resolution."
Among issues on which the two sides are deadlocked is the inclusion of government ministers as members of the parliamentary sectoral committees.
At the press conference on Tuesday, Hoyte confirmed receipt of the letter and said that he was in the course of replying to it.
However, he said that if the President had any proposals for resolving the impasse he should pass them on to Persaud.
President Jagdeo, according to GINA, said that if ministers could not be appointed "then there will not be sufficient parliamentarians to sit on such committees."
GINA quoted the President as saying that the PNC/R was reluctant to concede on the proposal of amending the Constitution to allow for more technocrat ministers to be appointed or reducing the numbers of the various committees. Under the recent amendments to the constitution, the President was restricted to appointing just four technocrat ministers. If the PNC/R agrees to increase this it would allow for some of the elected members of the parliament who hold ministerial appointments to be appointed as technocrats and their seats filled from the PPP/C list of candidates. Alternatively, according to the release, the President is proposing that the size of the committees be reduced.
Hoyte confirmed his opposition to the appointment of technocrat ministers, saying that if he had his way there would no technocrat ministers. He also confirmed his party's opposition to ministers being members of the sectoral committees, arguing that the President's dilemma was due to the appointment of 21 ministers. He said that with 21 ministers the country was over-ministered and that government back-benchers would have to be members of more than one committee.
About reducing the size of the committee, Hoyte said that no proposal had been made to the PNC/R and suggested that the President should make a firm proposal about reducing the size of the committees. At present the proposed size of the committee is 11 with the government having six members and the opposition five.