President's non-assent to bills preposterous - Trotman
Rohee: Stiffer traffic penalties coming
By Heppilena Ferguson
Stabroek News
February 20, 2007
Alliance for Change (AFC) Member of Parliament Raphael Trotman has taken aim at President Bharrat Jagdeo's refusal to assent to a number of bills already passed in the National Assembly, describing it as the most preposterous legal situation to have faced the country.
Trotman raised the issue to a quiet and attentive National Assembly on Thursday citing his disappointment with the legal minds affiliated with the government, and laying the blame at their feet for not advising the president accordingly.
His comment came during his presentation on the 2007 budget.
Trotman cited an article in the February 8 edition of Stabroek News in which the President was quoted as saying during a press briefing that he had not assented to a number of bills passed last year for "different reasons", including lobbying from the private sector and because of his personal concerns as well.
Trotman made reference, too, to the President's response on the point that he did not give his assent though there was unanimity in the National Assembly on the bills.
Jagdeo had said in his defence that the President of the United States has veto powers. "Here we seem to want to emasculate the presidency and I am not going to allow that. I will exercise the authority given to me by the constitution," Jagdeo had added.
To this, Trotman said Guyana had a unique situation which he termed a 'hybrid' where the president was the head of state as well as head of government and so the president had different obligations.
He described the situation as the "most preposterous legal situation" and reiterated that the legal minds in the governing party should know better.
"This situation should be corrected almost immediately," Trotman urged.
Trotman pointed too to his disappointment at the suspension of the inter-party dialogue.
During his address at the opening of parliament on September 28, Jagdeo had indicated his willingness to set out modalities to work with the political opposition to resolve problems and to identify an agreed agenda on national issues, among other things.
According to Trotman, only one such meeting has materialized and "it is disappointing because we have never met again and we're still awaiting word from the Office of the President as to when such a meeting would take place."
He acknowledged that there has been some success under the current government.
"I would be disingenuous and downright dishonest if I were to deny that there has been success under the PPP administration. No one can deny that there has been an upsurge in construction and purposefulness within the populace coupled to a renewed optimism which one year ago was markedly absent," Trotman asserted.
Trotman said one year ago there was the grave and gathering threat of elections- associated violence, vicious crime, phantoms and freedom fighters, but today "whilst these continue to exist in one form or another I daresay that they appear less dark and dangerous as they did last year."
However Trotman said the budget speaks to only one dimension of the problems besetting Guyana and noted too that in his estimation it fell far below the minimum standard required of a budget presentation for a country like Guyana.
He pointed to a host of areas where he felt that enough was still not being done. In the area of crime and security, Trotman said the barbarity of the incidents in Agricola, the murder of the late Agriculture Minister Satyadeow Sawh and the relative youthfulness of the perpetrators are frightening indicators.
He recommended that these issues be addressed not simply with more guns and boots but through better research, intelligence and analysis at the institutions of higher learning.
It is in this realm, too, that he pointed to the ongoing saga regarding the missing army weapons.
"The fact that they were removed tells of a serious situation within the security situation and the nation continues to be threatened," he said.
He recounted too the days during National Service when officers were made to account for every spent shell that went missing. In this regard he urged that the nation be told exactly what happened to the weapons, how they ended up where some of them were found and who is responsible.
Partnerships
Speaking in support of the budget Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee said that government had a holistic approach to the crime fight and pointed too to the benefits of this approach which he said was already bearing fruit and even the business community had praised those efforts.
He noted too that onus remained on creating partnerships between the police and the community and said that to date 300 neighbourhood police were accredited as constables.
He added that there were 140 community policing groups across the country with over 2,000 members.
The minister presented a brief overview of the crime situation too and noted that the presence of police and army personnel on the streets had given more support and confidence to the citizenry.
He pointed too to the contract which government has entered into with Canadian Bank Note to provide machine readable passports to Guyana as part of a Caricom single market effort.
He said the first batch of these passports would be available by August this year and will protect against forgery.
Rohee alluded too to the construction of new police stations which he said was all part of the wider crime fighting effort.
He said that government acknowledged that strides are still to be made and in this regard it will be bringing a few pieces of legislation to parliament.
The legislation, he said, will propose increased penalties for persons found in possession of licensed firearms.
Additionally there will be increased penalties for traffic accidents and a new system for the issuance of traffic tickets. The prohibition of music in public transportation, the implementation of the use of breathalyzers by police and the establishment of a SWAT team would also be encompassed by the legislation, he said.
With regards to the recent prison outbreak at the Mazaruni facility Rohee maintained that there was no need for an increase in such facilities.
"We can't pretend that if we have another 100 cells that we will have a system that works … those who advocate for more prisons do not say where we should stop, so I don't think this is the solution," he insisted.
Instead the minister said that the government would take concerted action to find a way to rehabilitate offenders. He said work was ongoing in this regard and the ministry was also working to improve security in and around these facilities.
The much emphasized National Drug Strategy Mas-ter plan, Rohee said, was in the process of implementation.