Housing Minister still to face ‘Parliamentary Trial’

Dec 11, 2010 News

… Contentious $4B expenditure

More than four months after a prima facie case was made out against Housing and Water Minister, Irfaan Ally, and he was committed to the privileges Committee to find out whether he was guilty of contempt, action is yet to be taken.
It was Alliance For Change; Chairman, Khemraj Ramjattan, who by way of a motion in the National Assembly, sought to have Ally and Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh committed to the Privileges Committee which is akin to a ‘Parliamentary Trial.’
The action stems from what Ramjattan said was the deliberate misleading of the National Assembly as it relates to a $4B expenditure that was debated in January this year and later found to be spent last year.
When asked for an update yesterday, Ramjattan lamented the slothfulness with which the committee speculating that it may have something to do with the fact that the Attorney General Charles Ramson who is a member of the committee cannot vote.
He is not a member of the list of candidates and as such he is in the National Assembly as a technocrat.
The chairman of the Privileges Committee who is also the Speaker of the National Assembly is also not allowed to vote and as such Ramjattan posited that the government did not want to find themselves in the same quagmire they had in July when they last met.
He explained that on that meeting they had met on the Debbie Backer issue and the opposition votes had outnumbered the Government votes and as such they sought a deferral.
Ramjattan said that he would soon be making queries with the Speaker of the National Assembly as to why the Committee is yet to meet on the Irfaan Ally issue.
He did suggest that it was deliberate in that the government was “circling the wagon just to save their Minister.”
The AFC Chairman suggested that the government was seeking to drag their feet on the matter and Parliament will have to be dissolved next year to facilitate the elections and should this happen then he would not be penalized.
Ramjattan told the House that in January Irfaan Ali, Minister of Housing and Water, during consideration of a Financial Paper, told the House in response to a question from the Alliance For Change’s Sheila Holder, that the provision of $4B “is ready to be spent for Housing Development.”
This, Ramjattan said, was meant to understand that the monies were yet to be spent but subsequently in February it was realised that the monies had already been disbursed.
Ramjattan told the Speaker of the House yesterday that when the Estimates of the 2010 Budget were being considered in February the Housing Minister, “evaded, avoided and flagrantly refused to answer questions put to him concerning when exactly the $4B was spent, thereby failing to offer any credible clarification.
Ramjattan in his motion called for the House to signal its unanimous disapproval of Ali’s misleading statement and asked that the matter be referred to the Privileges Committee in keeping with the Parliamentary Standing.
Speaker of the House Ralph Ramkarran in his ruling told the members that a prima facie case was found to be made out against the Housing Minister and for him to be committed to the Committee of Privileges, which is akin to a trial.
When asked about the worst case scenario as it relates to penalties that could be imposed against Ali, Ramjattan said that he could be removed from Parliament because of his actions, adding that in any other democracy, both Ministers would have been forced to resign.
Ramjattan said that, “to lie in Parliament is fundamentally a breach of the conventions and privileges…you do not lie to Parliament and that is exactly what they did here.”
The Committee of Privileges is chaired by Speaker of the House Ralph Ramkarran.
Government members of that Committee include Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee, Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport Dr Frank Anthony, Donald Ramotar, Indranie Chandarpal and Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs Charles Ramson.
PNCR members of the committee include Dave Danny, Dr. John Austin and Cheryl Sampson while the AFC member is David Patterson.

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Housing Minister still to face ‘Parliamentary Trial’

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