Opposition parties discuss management committee composition
Stabroek News
February 16, 2003
Ways of resolving the impasse over the composition of the parliamentary management committee were among the issues discussed by the parliamentary opposition parties when they met at the Georgetown Club on Friday.
They are to meet again this week to look at ways of addressing the concerns of the PPP about the committee, but they are agreed that its functions should be in accordance with the Standing Orders.
Newly-elected PNCR leader Robert Corbin convened the meeting as part of consultations on issues of concern he has been holding with civil society groups in preparation for his meeting with President Jagdeo.
Sources close to the meeting said that the smaller opposition parties were encouraged by Corbin's willingness to take on board suggestions that the engagement with the government should be widened to include other groups beside the PNCR, and that he appreciates the need to go beyond the traditional box in the search for solutions to the political, economic and social crisis engulfing the nation.
Stabroek News understands that the parties, while insisting that there is parity in the numbers on the ten-member committee which should be chaired by the Speaker, point out that the government would have a majority of five members with the PNCR having three members and the GAP/WPA and ROAR each having one member.
ROAR and GAP/WPA contend that the PPP's argument against parity by assuming that they would always vote with the PNCR denies their independence and the mandate given to them by their individual constituencies.
Other issues discussed included the national security situation, with ROAR asking that the PNCR among other things take "more comprehensive actions to remove criminals from the communities of Buxton and Friendship (which it says are PNC constituencies) from which "criminals stage their depredations on the neighbouring communities - especially Annandale."
Other measures ROAR wants the PNCR to adopt and raise with the President, some of which ROAR said were proposed in a letter to President Jagdeo include: ensuring that army and police personnel reflect the population of Guyana; the disbanding of the Target Special Squad and the formation of a Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) unit expedited and supported by legislation specifying terms, conditions and modalities of its activities such as powers of arrest, deployment, entry into homes and phone tapping; the reintroduction of the Guyana People's Militia as a "Guyana Home Guard"; the repudiation, rejection and denunciation of violence by all parties as a political tool and the mounting of official enquiries into all police, bandits and terrorists since 1998.
Stabroek News understands that the Working People's Alliance was interested in hearing Corbin's appreciation of what had to be done to resolve the political impasse and was heartened by his willingness to look at every possible measure that could move the process forward. At the meeting Corbin reportedly informed them of the motion he had submitted and his request that the parliament be convened on Wednesday to debate it.
He later said the government's response would determine whether the PNCR continues to participate in the work of the National Assembly beyond that date. The PNCR withdrew from the National Assembly in March last year because of its dissatisfaction with the implementation of the dialogue decisions and what it says is the failure of the government to implement the agreed constitutional reforms.
Their withdrawal has led to a gridlock in the administration of the country as a result of the inability to establish the four Service Commissions (Police, Judiciary, Teaching and the Public Service). The absence of the commissions means that issues of appointments, discipline and transfers in the various sectors are in abeyance and in the case of the public service retirement benefits for persons retiring from the various services cannot be processed.
