Parliament staffers leave on training at Westminster

Sep 07, 2010 News

Six staff members of the Parliament Office who work in the Committees Division left on Sunday for London to undertake a week of training at House of Commons in Westminster, London.

The staffers on training are Debra Cadogan, Nickalai Pryce, Candayce Girard, Sonia Maxwell, Darlene Marshall and Jocette Bacchus.

The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association – UK (CPA-UK) Branch is providing the training with co-funding from the British High Commission in Georgetown.

The training will cover Operations of Parliamentary Committees (such as the Public Accounts Committee), Parliamentary procedures and practices, Research methodologies and Oversight.

Handing over airline tickets to the staff, High Commissioner (Ag), Simon Bond, noted that in the last 25 years the Committees system has been transforming the UK Parliament providing both an essential forum for investigation of issues of public concern, work on legislation and fulfilling a key function holding Government departments to account. Committee work was now central to the way the UK Parliament functions.

The reputation and powers of Committees have developed over the years and back benchers (Ministers who are not members of UK Parliamentary Committees) compete for membership, with the Chair of certain Committees now highly influential.

Bond said the UK Parliament did not have all the answers on Committee work but now had a growing body of experience that he hoped would be useful for the Guyanese officials.

Speaker of the National Assembly, Ralph Ramkarran, thanked the British High Commission, the Government of the UK and the CPA for their continued interest and support. He shared the sentiments of the High Commissioner (Ag) about the importance of the work of the Committees.

Ramkarran noted that the Guyana National Assembly has a short history of doing Committee work and thus the training is very important. “I see an increasing role for Committees. They can add to the reputation of Parliament especially in its reports to the electorate,” he said.

He urged the staffers to make the most of the opportunity.