Budget debate...PPP not cowards, walkout was planned- Rohee

Budget debate…PPP not cowards, walkout was planned- Rohee

Feb 16, 2016 News

Leader of the Opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Bharrat Jagdeo, led his party in a walkout from the National Assembly on Friday, after launching into a near two-hour long criticism of Budget 2016.

The PPP Members of Parliament as they rose to walk out on Friday.

During the party’s weekly press conference at its Freedom House headquarters yesterday, General Secretary Clement Rohee made no apologies for his party’s actions. He noted that the party was no coward, that it had planned it all out before hand. He said that the action had his full support.
“I was in full agreement of the walk out,” he said. “We discussed these matters before. All this has to do with parliamentary strategy and tactics.”
“Could you imagine if all the 31 Members of Parliament (MP) walked out and I was the only one sitting there?” he continued. “I’m sure many people would be rubbing their hands in glee, because they have something to write about. It can’t happen and it wouldn’t happen.”
He noted that Jagdeo is the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament and he thus led the walk out as leader in that sense, while others followed. Rohee added that such matters were discussed internally.
Following Jagdeo’s exit just before Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo’s rebuttal of the Opposition’s arguments, the Prime Minister had some choice words for his counterpart in the House. He noted that Jagdeo’s actions showed total disregard for House Speaker, Dr. Barton Scotland and for the National Assembly by extension.
“I did not expect that this House would have been treated with such disrespect from a recalcitrant Opposition,” Nagamootoo had said. “I cannot believe that the Opposition believes that it can show disregard for the chair presiding over a democratic Assembly in which there are certain procedures.”
The Prime Minister had also expressed the view that Jagdeo’s behaviour is nothing but cowardice and that it should not be tolerated.
“The PPP as political cowards?” Rohee queried, sounding incredulous. “If the PPP was a political party of cowards, I wouldn’t be here. Because anyone who knows my history among others (would know) this is not a party of cowards. But Nagamootoo deemed us cowards because it is an argument of convenience.”
Rohee also claimed that the reason Nagamootoo said what he said was because “He is being deprived of the ears and the eyes of the opposition. He would have loved that, to wax warmly in the presence of (all the leading MPs).”
The PPP has developed a track record of walking out of parliament. Back in August 2015, as Minister of Social Protection, Volda Lawrence, rose to make her budget presentation, Jagdeo calmly led his party out of the House and into the Members of Parliament lounge. It was afterwards reported that the move was to facilitate a small meeting among the PPP MPs.
In December 2015, the party also walked out after a heated debate over the passage of two bills – the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Bill and the Municipal and District Councils and Local Authorities (Elections) (Amendment) Bill 2015- with Nagamootoo laying a motion to suspend the standing orders for the Bills to pass.
Then, last month, the PPP walked out of the National Assembly during a debate on a motion proposed by the party to have all Members of Parliament file annual Income Tax returns in compliance with the Income Tax Act.
Nevertheless the PPP, while in Government, is on the record condemning similar action taken by A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) during parliament.