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AFC boycotts Parliament to protest Minister’s refusal to provide answers
Contentious $4B Housing Allocation…
– AFC
“The Alliance For Change delegation did not fail to show up…We refused to show up and be exposed to the untruths, half-truths and obfuscation that has come to characterize the manner in which the government Ministers handle the questions posed on the estimates.”
This is according to Leader of the AFC, Raphael Trotman, who was at the time responding to a GINA statement issued to the effect that “AFC fails to show up after found lying.”
Trotman said that the attitude of the ruling party in the House is counter to everything that is democratic and transparent. It is disrespectful of the National Assembly, its members and Guyanese tax payers, he added.
Raphael Trotman
“During the debates, we urged that the government agree to begin a process of change in the way we relate to each other as MP’s and as political parties, and ultimately, handle the people’s business.”
Unfortunately, according to Trotman the opportunity which presented itself was scoffed at by the PPPC whose members delighted in attempting to embarrass opposition MPs and at times refused outright to answer straightforward and justified questions about expenditures.
He said that for the PPPC it was “business as usual”, even as proven cases of fraud and mismanagement were brought to the attention of the Assembly.
“Our refusal to be present when the estimates were approved was a protest action to the snide and ridiculing comments and remarks from the evening before when the Minister of Housing Irfaan Ali refused to give an answer to the question as to the spending of the $4B, and the lop-sided and arrogant way in which the process is dealt with by the government.”
“This arrogant and taunting behaviour continued with the biased reporting on NCN all day regarding Khemraj Ramjattan (Party Chairman)…In our opinion, Mr. Ramjattan was vindicated by the questioning of Winston Murray and Khemraj on the $4B.”
Added to that, Trotman said that they are aware that the entire process of budget debates and review of the estimates is fundamentally flawed because the opposition members are deliberately misled, and no suggestion whatsoever made by Opposition MPs for spending is ever accepted by the Minister of Finance.
“We are aware that since 2005 approximately $537.5B have been budgeted and spent and that because of squander mania, waste, graft, corruption and leakages, more than $160 B has not been spent in the targeted areas…Where has all this money disappeared to? There has to be a better way to deal with the people’s business.”
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