Opposition members want improvements in functioning of Parliamentary Management Committee
It would help if government could provide its legislative agenda at least for a three -month period
By Patrick Denny
Stabroek News
May 29, 2004
One of the important recent reforms in the system of government has been the setting up of a Parliamentary Management Committee comprising members of the government and the opposition, but some members of the opposition are not entirely happy with the way this committee has been functioning and suggest an early review.
The review, they said, should look at the resources and expertise that have been assigned to the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and how effectively those resources are being utilised. If the Parliamentary Manage-ment Committee is to work as intended, an efficient functioning Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs is required to ensure that legislation is channelled to the National Assembly in a more structured fashion.
ROAR's parliamentarian Ravi Dev, who is a member of the committee, believes that a functioning unit which can determine the legislation needed for the implementation of government programmes in the various areas could help to bring a much needed rigour to the Govern-ment's legislative programme.
PNCR chief whip Lance Carberry says he has no problem with the idea of a proper functioning ministry but in its absence objects to the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs attempting to manage the business of parliament to the exclusion of the management committee.
He explains that the management of the business of parliament which is part of the committee's mandate as set out in the resolution which established it, includes the parliamentary agenda. Most of the business of the parliament is the consideration of government bills and motions.
He said that Parliamentary Affairs Minister Reepu Daman Persaud had submitted a list of various issues about which the government intends to introduce legislation but has yet to give the committee more detailed information about the intended legislation.
Dev said that it has to be in part a problem of management that the government is unable to provide the parliamentary management committee with its legislative agenda at least for a three-month period based on what it wants to achieve in various sectors, and the legislation required to ensure that its objectives could be accomplished. A contributing factor, he said, is the fact that the government's legislative agenda is being driven by the international financial institutions and it is averse to sharing information about the legislation that these institutions want it to enact as a condition for their assistance.
He contends that if the government could provide a legislative agenda the opposition would be able to do its homework and that would make for better informed debates. At present he said that the committee functions on an ad hoc basis citing the recent drainage and irrigation bill that was approved at the last sitting of the National Assembly.
The 140-page bill containing 87 clauses, Dev says, was given to parliamentarians the previous Thursday for them to study and debate the following Monday. He said that he stayed from the session at which it was considered as he was unable to complete the consultations that were needed to make an informed contribution.
Stabroek News understands that the rationale for the rush to enact it was to satisfy a condition for a US$27 million Inter-American Deve-lopment Bank loan, about which a meeting was being held in Washington DC days after the bill was enacted. Stabroek News understands that the government claims that it does not always know well ahead of time the dates for these meetings.
While that may be so, Stabroek News understands that the bill was drafted in 2000 based on a study that was carried out and then shelved. It was hurriedly dusted off and sent to the National Assembly as the date for the meeting neared.
Carberry said that it was just such a situation that the management committee was established to avoid as well as the five-minute sittings that have been characteristic of the present parliament.
Based on a previous decision of the Parliamentary Management Committee, he said, the Drainage and Irrigation Bill should have been referred to a Select Committee, but the Speaker of the National Assembly Ralph Ramkarran who chairs the management committee points out that the decision allows the government to avoid doing so if its deems the legislation to be urgent.
Ramkarran in looking at what gets on the Order Paper, says that the government still determines what gets on it but observes that very few opposition motions are being tabled.
The last opposition motion that was to be debated at a Wednesday sitting was the one tabled by PNCR parliamentarians Raphael Trotman and Deborah Backer which took an inordinately long time to reach the Order Paper, and then it did had to be withdrawn as a PNCR boycott of the parliament was in progress.
The lack of opposition motions has in his opinion resulted in Wednesdays not being devoted to private members' business.
In looking at the functioning of the parliament generally, Ramkarran pointed out that if the sector committees develop as he anticipates they should, it would allow for more structured debates on issues.
He explained that the discussions in the committees are less contentious and there is usually more give and take than what occurs during the general debates in plenary sessions of the National Assembly.
Dev confirms that there is a level of collegiality in the committees but he said that it harks back to the absence of a structured approach to the setting of an agenda for the sittings of the National Assembly.
Dealing with public access to the meetings of the sector committees, Ramkarran pointed out that they are closed to the public as a result of the Standing Order that governs the procedures of Select Committees, which these committees are designated as. However, he says that all that is required is a motion asking for the procedures to be reviewed. If approved he said the motion would activate the Standing Orders Committee to carry out the review of the procedures.