Parliamentary Sectoral Committees

Feb 10, 2013 Editorial

Last Thursday, in addition to the fireworks and walkouts that accompanied the speech by Minister of Home Affairs on the floor of the House, there were some other, potentially more productive, developments. The Chairpersons and Vice-Chairpersons of the four Sectoral Committees – Economic Services, Natural Resources, Social Services and Foreign Relations – were appointed.
We have repeatedly identified the underutilisation of these committees by our politicians in the governance of our country. These committees were launched in 2003 as a consequence of the constitutional changes introduced in 2000. They were specifically introduced to address the complaint of the Opposition that they did not have a very meaningful role to play in the Parliament when the government had a majority in the House. The Opposition was then basically reduced to a rubber stamp.
The Public Affairs Committee, which up to then was the major parliamentary mechanism for the Opposition to scrutinise the government’s operations (it was by tradition, always chaired by a member of the Opposition) was basically reduced to performing an audit function. This was because it would use the annual Auditor General’s Report to ask questions of governmental spending. As we have seen in the last year of more vigorous interrogation, in most instances the government and the country would have already moved on.
While this is the case with all legislatures following the British Parliamentary model, in our country, the Opposition complained that because of stubborn entrenched majorities that discouraged alternating governments, the Opposition had no way of influencing governance in real time. If that possibility existed, they claimed, they would be in a position to expose weaknesses in the government’s programs and projects when changes could be forced in a timely enough manner so as to increase the efficiency of governmental operations.
The four Sectoral Committees cover the entire gamut of current governmental operations and their Chairs are equally split between the Opposition and government with annual rotations.
Away from the partisan posturing that usually colours the larger parliamentary debates, they are small enough for collegial participation. From a practical standpoint, to encourage participation of MP’s, the latter are offered an increase of their salaries once they are appointed to the committees.
More importantly, the Committees are supported by their own staff and they can also hire research assistants. The media and the public can also be invited to their hearings. With all of this hard-won increase of their democratic powers of governmental oversight, it is rather unfortunate that the Opposition have not made better use of the Committees’ existence.
Take for instance, the explosion that occurred after elements of the Opposition took umbrage at the government’s proposal to equalise the electricity tariffs of Linden residents with those that prevailed in the rest of the country. All of the principals in the making and executing of that decision – from the Ministers to GPL – could have been summoned by the Economic Services Committee to justify and possibly modify their decision.
Away from the reflexive confrontational postures and verbiage of street protests, Committee hearings are the institutionalised vehicles for settling political differences over governmental initiatives. We return to a favourite example that we have cited previously: the sugar industry. It is appalling that in the fact of the continued collapse of that pillar of our economy that no hearings were held in the past year. Yet Opposition members of the Economic Services Committee were quite vociferous in the press over their take on the issue.
This will not do. Guyana needs politicians from both camps who are willing to move beyond politicking and get down to brass tacks to settle the ailments that beset our country.
Those ‘brass tacks’ include a willingness to attend meetings that may sometimes seem interminable. They include willingness, as the Speaker recently reminded MP’s, for the Sectoral Committees, to leave the comforts of their air conditioned offices in Parliament and visit the various projects about which they are complaining. We exhort all our politicians to engage in some more work in the Committee trenches.

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Parliamentary Sectoral Committees

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