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Opposition petitions Parliament to expel Dharamlall over ‘dildo’ remarks
Kaieteur News – The Parliamentary Opposition has submitted a Motion to the National Assembly to send Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Nigel Dharamlall, to the Parliamentary Committee of Privileges, for likely sanctions to be imposed and steps be taken, to expel the official from Parliament for his purported “dishonourable behaviour and language” used in the House on February 9, 2022.
Former Minister of Telecommunications, Catherine Hughes
During that sitting, the Minister, in response to heckling by a female Opposition Member—Natasha Singh-Lewis—said, “you got to get a dildo, that’s what’s you looking for.”
The Opposition Motion submitted by former Minister of Telecommunications, Catherine Hughes, states that a review of the closed-circuit video of the proceedings confirmed that the “offensive words” were clearly used.
According to her, “those words spoken by a member of the 12th Parliament of Guyana were vulgar, lewd, distasteful, misogynistic, and unprecedented in the august chamber of the National Assembly.”
She also argued that Standing Order 41 (6) expressly prohibits the use of “offensive and insulting language about Members of the Assembly,” and that the words of the Minister caused “great humiliation and embarrassment,” to all current and former female Members of Parliament (MP).
To this end, Hughes noted in the Motion that Dharamlall’s utterance has brought disrepute, mockery and ridicule to the National Assembly and members should therefore stand in solidarity with the female MP and condemn in the harshest and strongest terms possible, the dishonourable behaviour and language of the Minister.
The Opposition MP is of the view that the Local Government Minister should be sent to the Committee of Privileges, for its consideration of, and sanction for his behaviour and that the said Committee recommends punishment fitting and commensurate with the transgression committed.
Hughes in the motion also called on the House to resolve to censure Dharamlall and “initiate the necessary steps for his immediate expulsion from the National Assembly.”
On Tuesday last, the People’s National Congress Reform (PNC/R) faction of the Parliamentary Opposition held its weekly press conference where the party’s MP Natasha Singh-Lewis said that such trends, if not arrested and reversed will diminish public respect for the National Assembly.
She also called out the House Speaker, Manzoor Nadir, for condoning the behaviour of the government MPs.
She argued, “the performance of the Speaker of the House has reached a crisis point, in terms of his blatant bias, and subservience to the government,” and went on to quote the Party’s Leader, Aubrey Norton who said that the Speaker, “has been, and continues to be complicit in making the National Assembly a tool of oppression.”
The MP noted that since the remarks of Norton were made earlier in the year, the Speaker has unfortunately not mended his ways but instead has gotten worse.
Singh-Lewis at the time argued that, “to overlook Minister Dharamlall’s violation without appropriate sanctions runs the clear risk of normalising the crude and misogynistic behaviour that our society is struggling to discourage. To send the right message to our young men, Nigel Dharamlall must go.”
Opposition Member of Parliament, Sherod Duncan had sought to chastise Dharamlall calling him a “nasty fella” which was disallowed by the House Speaker who requested he take his seat.
Duncan, in response, shouted “I will not take my seat! I will not withdraw,” as he continued heckling the Minister, adding too that “the Speaker is condoning you all of the time.”
The Speaker then called on the Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Gail Teixeira to move a motion for Duncan to be suspended for the next four sittings, which was eventually allowed.
It must be noted that after Dharamlall made the “dildo” comments he posted an apology on his social media page, explaining that he was merely responding to “incessant insults” by Duncan.
According to the Minister, “on many occasions, the MPs on the government side have been ridiculed with some of the most uncouth and slanderous things about their bodies, their spouses, their children, their sexuality and even their dead relatives. Some of the chief culprits in the heckling crowd of APNU+AFC include MPs Sherod Duncan, Coretta McDonald and Natasha Singh-Lewis.”
He said too, “my heckle regarding a dildo was aimed at verbal excesses of MP Sherod Duncan… to those offended by my comment I am truly sorry. That is the truth.”
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