Entering Parliament was a rude awakening - Lawrence
Volda Lawrence has been in politics for as long as she can remember. And she is sure that if she were not helping people through her political work, she would still have been doing so out of her Christian duty.
When Lawrence entered the National Assembly after the 1997 elections, she received a rude awakening about the reality of politics in Guyana. She had expected that when Members of Parliament entered the chambers their party affiliations would be left at the door and furthering the national interest would have been the sole focus of their activities.
Not so. She said she has found that the Guyana Parliament is dominated by the governing party, which pushes its agenda to the exclusion of everything else no matter how much sense the position taken by the opposition makes. And she said it has not got any better over the years.
Lawrence's legislative interest is mainly in matters related to human services. She found the increase in the professional practice licence proposed in last year's budget unconscionable. She argued that the increases will be passed on to the poor, who are already feeling the brunt of it, since the Government says it has no money to improve the services it provides to them.
Khemraj Ramjattan
She finds the facilities provided for parliamentarians way below those of the parliaments she had the privilege of visiting both in the region and beyond in places such as Ottawa, Toronto, Scotland and London. What is depressing, Lawrence said, is that there is no vision of the improvements that should be made so that there could be some plan to guide those who follow the present crop of parliamentarians.
The stipend to MPs was increased earlier this year to provide a $20,000 allowance for those members who sit on committees and $15,000 for regional parliamentarians. But Lawrence said an increase in the $20 a month telephone allowance, which is not paid for cell phone calls, is derisible, as well as, the $250 a month entertainment allowance. She said she tries to maintain a staff with her parliamentary pay but it can hardly meet the expenses for research, travelling and other activities that are required. The insufficiency of resources, she said, adversely affects the quality and quantity of political work of MPs.
Lawrence is a member of the Public Accounts Committee and the parliamentary sector committee on social services.
With regard to her relations with government MPs, Lawrence said she has found that it is easier for the more experienced MPs to reach out to the opposition. The others seem to always be on guard, as if they believe that they are being watched to see how far they will go. She observes that no government backbencher comes across the aisle to talk to opposition members, which is unlike the behaviour of the opposition parliamentarians who would frequently approach the ministers for explanations or to raise matters. She observes, too, that the exchanges with not-so-experienced parliamentarians always take place at the recess when there are a lot of people milling around.
She remembers becoming politically active in the 1990s and has been chairman of the PNCR's West La Penitence group for several years. She has served as treasurer of Georgetown District. She is a member of the executive of the National Congress of Women and has served on the party's central executive as an elected member since 1999, but was on the committee before that as a co-opted member.
Lawrence who is married is the holder of the BSc degree from the University of Guyana and is currently pursuing a Masters degree in Business Administration by correspondence from Worcester University in the United Kingdom. She is a city girl having lived all her life in the Laing Avenue and Costello Housing Scheme areas. She attended St Thomas More Primary and Bourda Community High schools. After leaving high school she took some secretarial courses and worked for short stints at Amrithdara Manufacturing as a secretary; Double D Enterprises as an accounts clerk; at MACS Secretarial School as a teacher; the Embassy of Suriname; and the then Embassy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) before moving to the Georgetown American School where she has been since 1989.
She has been a member of the Light of Light New Testament Church for more than two decades and says her responsibility to young ladies in the church who she mentors together with her political activities takes up all of her time.
Ramjattan still in Parliament despite expulsion from party
Khemraj Ramjattan entered parliament in 1992 and his experience during the Cheddi Jagan parliament (1992-1997) matched his expectations. The debates were lively and of a high quality particularly the contributions of Moses Nagamootoo, Reepu Daman Persaud and then Attorney General Bernard De Santos among others on the government side and on the opposition benches the late Desmond Hoyte SC, Winston Murray, and Dr Kenneth King, among others.
Ramjattan is one of the three regional parliamentarians for the East Berbice/Corentyne region (Region 6). The others are Ramesh Rajkumar (PPP/C) and Nasir Ally (PNCR). He was expelled from the PPP earlier this year but has refused to resign his seat. His name is still listed as a PPP parliamentarian.
Ramjattan says that after Cheddi Jagan's death in 1997 as the parliament evolved into a more deliberative forum scrutinising the actions of the executive, he found the discipline, to which he submitted as a good party comrade, that the party whips exerted extremely tight and strict. He explained that it made the PPP backbenchers morons of the government who have to hold their piece even when they knew they were right. He said that he believed there is value in allowing dissent among backbenchers once it is based on good sense and sound reasoning.
Ramjattan describes the facilities for parliamentarians to meet and speak with their constituents as appalling, explaining that in his case he has had to accommodate them at his home or under someone's bottom house in the region to hear their complaints and concerns. Also, he says it takes countless hours to keep the constituents informed of the actions you have taken or are taking on the issues they raised with you.
About the parliamentary library, Ramjattan said that until recently it was difficult to access source materials for the preparation of contributions to debates. He opined that it must have been difficult for his colleagues who did not have access to the professional network as he had to source these documents.
Ramjattan describes the stipend paid to parliamentarians as laughable pointing out that one could not survive on a parliamentary salary for two weeks, even with the recent increases. He calls the allowance paid for telephone as laughable and says that he could never understand why the parliamentarians are paid so little given the personal and other appurtenances they would have to provide if they are going to be really effective.
About his relations with his colleagues on the opposition benches he said they have always been good as well as those with his colleagues on the government benches. However, since his expulsion the relationship with some government frontbenchers has been a bit strained.
Before his expulsion Ramjattan had been a member of the PPP's central committee since 1998, having been disqualified after winning a seat in 1994. He was also chairman of the Progressive Youth Organisation, which he had joined in 1975, from 1989-1994.
Ramjattan, an attorney at law was born at No 48 Village on the Corentyne and went to the primary school there before moving to Rama Krishna Primary School where he wrote the Secondary Schools Entrance Examination and won a place at North Georgetown Secondary. However, he had to transfer to the Corentyne High School after his father, a school teacher, had to relocate the family back to East Berbice.
After graduating from Corentyne High School, Ramjattan entered the University of Guyana where he completed Part 1 of the UG/UWI LL.B programme and then to UWI Cave Hill campus where he completed Parts II and III. He then completed the Certificate of Legal Education at Hugh Wooding Law School.
After graduating from Hugh Wooding, Ramjattan spent four years as a State Counsel in the Chambers of the Director of Public Prosecutions before joining De Santos' Chambers. He has since established his own chambers.
Ramjattan is president of the Guyana Bar Association and Editor of the Bar Review. He is an executive member of the Gandhi Youth Organisation and a member of the billiards team at Everest Sports Club. He is married and has two sons - 14 and 11 - who are respectively in secondary and primary schools.