Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo has made it a point to note that while the Peoples’ Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) regards the Eleventh Parliament as dead, its Members of Parliament (MPs) are still collecting salaries and making use of duty-free concessions.
Nagamootoo said this during a radio programme, “Insight.”
“They are saying that Parliament is dead but I’m sure the opposition MPs are collecting their salaries and receiving duty-free concessions from the dead parliament. They’re beneficiaries of the dead,” Nagamootoo said.
He added that the PPP/C’s claim is far from the truth as the Parliament is still intact and posited several reasons for his statement.
“Parliament stays in intact until certain things happen and one of those things would be that the president dissolves the parliament. Parliament can be dissolved at any time within the framework of an election period, that would come after the proclamation of a date. It can even happen simultaneously; the president has to dissolve Parliament and dissolve the ten Regional Democratic Councils…But these are the matter for the President to decide,” Nagamootoo noted.
His comments come days after PPP/C’s Chief Whip, and MP Gail Teixeira said that Parliament is “gone”. Her comments were made during a press conference at the Office of the Leader of the Opposition after the party staged a massive protest in the capital calling for the administration to resign in wake of the expiration of the three-month period of the validation of the no-confidence motion by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).
“The Parliament is dead. There’s no Parliament. What are you talking about?” Teixeira responded when a question was posed to her regarding the PPP/C’s return to Parliament to extend the life of the David Granger-led coalition administration.
She noted that with the expiration of the 90-day period on September 18, the Cabinet, the President and the Executive are all illegal and therefore, Parliament seizes to exist without its components.
“The Parliament is dead. It is gone. The President is illegal, the Executive is illegal and so the National Assembly cannot stand up on its feet by itself [because] it is part of the Parliament. So, there is no recourse back to Parliament. It is over.”
When PPP/C MP, Harry Gill was contacted earlier today to ascertain whether he and his colleagues were receiving payments, he responded in the affirmative. Further inquiries were proven futile as the MP directed this publication to speak with the Opposition Leader, Bharrat.
Nonetheless, the Guyana Standard contacted the Clerk of the National Assembly, Sherlock Issacs, who confirmed that all MPs are being paid. Quizzed on whether there are any conditions attached, given that the House is in recess, Issacs said, “no. They are getting paid. They are MPs,” he said.
