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PPP agreed to content of joint statement – Harmon
By Abena Rockcliffe-Campbell
Tit for tat?
At a press conference on Thursday, Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo told the media that the government misrepresented the occurrences of his meeting with President David Granger last week. He said that the mischief was in the joint statement that the government released.
Less than 24 hours after, Minister of State Joseph Harmon told the media that it is Jagdeo who is misrepresenting things. Harmon said that the Opposition Leader knows very well that the statement was approved by him (Jagdeo) and two other People’s Progressive Party (PPP) officials.
Harmon said this at post-Cabinet press briefing held at the Ministry of the Presidency.
The meeting was the first issue Harmon dealt with at yesterday’s forum.
Minister of State, Joseph Harmon
He told the press that Cabinet was provided with details of what took place at last week’s meeting and the joint statement was circulated.
Harmon said that the joint statement was drafted by himself and Minister Raphael Trotman for the government and Opposition Members of Parliament Anil Nandlall and Irfaan Ali.
Harmon said that the four worked no less than four hours to ensure that the statement was an accurate representation of what was discussed.
“After that long session, the statement was not released until midday the following day because all throughout the morning there were calls for changing this and changing that, we accommodated all of it.”
Harmon said that that is why he found Jagdeo’s claim of misrepresentation “a bit troubling.”
Harmon said, “Sometimes I wish the public can take a peek into the way these things are done. There it was, Nandlall was actually iterating the Leader of Opposition’s position on a certain matter and he was strolling around my office iterating it, and I taking notes.”
Harmon said that the government regarded the entire exercise as uplifting for the public to see that government and opposition members can actually sit and hammer out documents in the national interest.
Harmon said that Jagdeo had his say even the day after.
“The last insertions in that statement were made by Jagdeo. He called me at 11:45 hrs to say ‘please insert this’ and I said ‘yes, that is okay to put in’. So this was a question of going forward and backward, forward and backward. Citizens were asking into the night, ‘where is this statement, y’all had the meeting since 12 o’clock?’ But sometimes to capture what was said and what was the intention of the parties takes a while to put in writing.”
Harmon said that the government holds to the letter “and the spirit of the document itself, I am not sure what Jagdeo is talking about.”
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