MAY 08

The opposition Members in the House of Representatives associated with the National Democratic Congress (NDC) have expressed concern over the refusal of government to convene Parliament for the month of April.

The last sitting of the House of Representatives was on March 30.
Three opposition MP's - Tillman Thomas (St. Patrick's East), Denis Lett (St. David's) and Kenrick Fullerton (St. Andrew's South-East) submitted questions during that sitting for government members to answer.

Questions were directed to Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell about the Economic Citizenship Programme, Community Development Minister Roland Bhola on the funding for the construction of a Community Center at Grand Bras and Education and Labour Minister Claris Charles on the employment of School Attendance Officers.

There were questions also for Works and Communications Minister, Dr. Clarice Modeste-Curwen on the status of government guarantee for the Levera Hotel project, as well as the situation with the St. Patrick's R.C School.

The opposition parliamentarians were told at the sitting by those on the government side that the answers were unavailable but that they will be given at another sitting. Fullerton told reporters that he feared the government is trying to avoid providing the opposition members of parliament with answers to the questions they raised in the house.

He said the excuse given at the last sitting was that those questions were not submitted in time. Fulllerton wondered what the opposition members would be told at the next sitting and answers for the questions he submitted are not given since he does not intend to have them removed from the Order Paper.

Member of Parliament for St. George's North-East, Nazim Burke who also spoke at the press conference held at the Office of the Leader of the Opposition Wednesday, said that there is an established practice for Parliament to be held every third Tuesday of the month.

According to Section 10 of the Standing Orders, the House of Representatives should meet every third Tuesday of the month. Burke noted that Leader of Government Business, Gregory Bowen who is the Deputy Prime Minister had asked Opposition Leader Tillman Thomas to have the sittings changed to the last Friday of each month and the opposition had agreed to the request.

Burke, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Congress party, pointed out that last Friday was the end of the month and the Parliament did not convene for the entire month.

He charged the Mitchell government with being in breach of the Standing Orders of the house, adding that the intention of the government is seemingly to convene Parliament when it is convenient and politically safe for them to do so.

Burke suggested that the government is reluctant to hold sittings of parliament because they did not want to provide answers to the questions asked by the opposition members from the last Order Paper.

He said the Mitchell regime also wanted to shy away from the numerous pressing issues of national importance such as the state of the local economy, the Levera Hotel project, the Dipcon fiasco, and the rising costs of living among other things.

In the case of the Levera project, the original developer had left the country after getting a state guarantee of close to 30 milion dollars for the project while the government was recently ordered by the London-based Privy Council to pay Dipcon, a construction company 17 million dollars in compensation for breach of contract.

The NDC parliamentarians have said that if the House of Representatives will not hold any sittings then they will conduct their own People's Parliament around the country. The first one has been announced for May 9 in St. Patrick's.