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$700,000 in food for every National Assembly sitting
The cost of meals for Parliamentarians every sitting is an estimated $700,000, it has been disclosed.
An estimated $700,000 is being spent on food every time the National Assembly meets.
Responding to questions yesterday, Clerk of the National Assembly, Sherlock Isaacs, disclosed that the Assembly Committee of the National Assembly of the Parliament of Guyana considered and gave approval for a number of food suppliers to be invited through the restrictive bidding process, to bid for the supply of meals and snacks for sittings of the National Assembly and Committee Meetings.
The four suppliers that bid were Maggie’s Snackette and Catering Service; Ambience Restaurant and Catering Service; Carnegie School of Home Economics and Water Chris Hotel and Bar.
According to Isaacs, the contract was awarded by the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) on 5th July, 2018 to Maggie’s Snackette and Catering Service for the supply of meals and snacks for sittings of the National Assembly and Committee Meetings.
Isaacs also said that the amount that is expended on each sitting is approximately $700,000.
The performance of parliamentarians has been coming more under the spotlight in recent years.
It was reported sometime back that the cost of every sitting, for food; for putting up MPs in hotels and for paying travelling from out of the region, among other things, was over $1.5M.
Over the week, Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo, in his column, ‘My Turn’, disclosed that
when the House went into recess on August 10, it had already met for 96 sittings in the first three years of the 11th Parliament (2015-2020).
By the end of 2018, sittings are likely to surpass 110 when the National Assembly would debate the 2019 National Budget, including consideration of estimates for constitutional and statutory agencies.
At $700,000 per sittings plus committee meetings, that meant almost $80M would have been spent in the three years on food alone.
Nagamootoo also insisted that the sittings under the APNU+AFC Coalition Government would be the single highest number in the first three years of any Parliament since 1992.
Though truncated, there were only 62 sittings during the 7th (1997-2001) Parliament (Janet Jagan Presidency) and 88 sittings during the 2011-2014 Parliament (Donald Ramotar Presidency), he wrote.
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