Latest update November 5th, 2024 1:37 AM
Opposition demands President withdraw “terrorist” statement
– walks out of Parliamentary committee
President Donald Ramotar’s tag of the Opposition as terrorists, over the weekend, sparked a walkout Monday by Opposition members from a key Parliamentary Select Committee on anti-money laundering legislation.
The Parliamentarians are threatening now to not participate in future committee meetings unless the President withdraws the statement.
President Donald Ramotar
This latest incident underlines the growing divide between the Government and the Opposition in the law-making National Assembly.
It also raises questions as to whether an August 26 deadline, for Guyana to submit critical documentation on what changes the country has made to its anti-money laundering measures, can be met.
The Opposition, which controls the National Assembly, had voted to send the anti-money laundering legislation to the select committee. Failure by Guyana to submit the documents and be reviewed in a positive manner in November by an international panel could attract financial and other penalties.
According to Leader of the Alliance For Change (AFC), Khemraj Ramjattan, on Monday afternoon, he was one of the Parliamentarians who walked out of the meeting of the Select Committee dealing with the Anti-Money Laundering Bill.
In a statement, Ramjattan said that President Ramotar had called the Opposition Parliamentarians who last Thursday voted down the Amaila Falls hydro electric amendment Bill and the motion to up the guarantee to public corporations to $150B, “terrorists”.
“This I found most offensive and insulting. I have since written a piece explaining that it was out of prudence that the AFC voted as it did,” the AFC leader said.
On Monday, during the anti-money laundering deliberations, Ramjattan said that the issue of the terrorist remark was raised by Carl Greenidge, a member of A Partnership For National Unity (APNU), on behalf of the Opposition members.
“He urged the Select Committee to pass a motion to condemn what the President said in public. The Government members, namely Anil Nandlall and Bishop Juan Edghill, sought to deflect the significance of the comment as not being material and relevant to what the Committee was doing and that whatever grievance the Opposition members felt should be taken to another forum.”
Greenidge successfully brought a vote to condemn the President’s statement, which saw the Opposition’s four members – Greenidge, Joseph Harmon, Basil Williams and Ramjattan “out-voting” the Government members, Nandlall and Edghill. Absent were Finance Minister Dr. Ashni Singh and Deborah Backer of APNU.
According to Ramjattan, the Chairperson of the Committee, Gail Teixeira, argued that the condemnation of the President was unwarranted and ought not to be allowed under the standing orders.
“It was at this point that I, Ramjattan, made an intervention arguing that since the Committee was preparing legislation to catch terrorists and prevent their financing, and since the President would have to assent to the legislation for it to become law, then it was most regrettable and repugnant that I, as a ‘terrorist’, should continue to be an author of this anti-terrorist law.”
Ramjattan said that it was then that he walked out of the meeting “saying as I did so that I will not participate further until the President retracts his description of myself and all the Opposition Parliamentarians as terrorists.”
Ramjattan said that it is the same President who failed to apologise for calling another AFC colleague a jackass recently.
Yesterday, APNU’s Joseph Harmon also confirmed that his colleagues walked out of Monday’s meeting but not before the vote was passed to condemn the “terrorist” remark of the President.
According to Harmon, the party is also insistent that President Ramotar publicly withdraw his statement.
With regards to the actual work of the committee, Harmon said that APNU was justified in sending the matter to be considered more in-depth by a Special Committee.
With the documents more in the public domain now, the Parliamentarian said that several stakeholders, including accountants and others, have been making critical submissions.
“These concerns have to be carefully considered.”
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