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Speaker denies Opposition’s Motion for independent probe into Vice News allegations
Kaieteur News – Speaker of the National Assembly Manzoor Nadir has turned down an Opposition Motion seeking to address the corruption and bribery allegations against Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo in relation to the recently released Vice News undercover report.
Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton (right) and Alliance for Change Leader, Khemraj Ramjattan (left), delivering the Motion on Wednesday to Clerk of the National Assembly, Sherlock Isaacs
Leader of the Opposition Aubrey Norton on Wednesday submitted a Motion to the Clerk of the National Assembly, calling for an international investigation into the allegations made by numerous Chinese nationals doing business here who have claimed to pay bribes in return for lucrative government contracts, and that they were laundering money to facilitate corrupt business transactions here.
The Motion was related to two VICE News reports where, apart from the broad allegations of Guyana being corrupt by the Chinese business people, Su Zhirong a “friend” and tenant of the VP alleged specifically, that he was Jagdeo’s middleman and collected bribe money for him as well. In a letter to the Speaker, Norton said that he was making the request for permission to move the adjournment under Standing Orders No.12 of the National Assembly to discuss the motion on “a definite matter of urgent public importance.”
However, when the 48th Sitting of the National Assembly convened at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre on Thursday, Speaker Nadir said that the issue on hand must be of a “definite matter of urgent public importance,” and in his opinion, the issue regarding the VP was not. The Speaker explained that firstly, in considering the Opposition Leader’s Motion, which was seconded by the Alliance for Change Leader, Khemraj Ramjattan, the matter has to be “definitely urgent and of public importance.” He said the second consideration is the basis for the request. In this case, he continued, the request is made based on “media allegations of corruption.” The Speaker said he has seen in the media many such allegations of corruption against many current members of the Assembly. “And if we have to take every allegation in the press on any issue as a matter of urgent public importance, then we are going to have, in my view, a Parliament that will be considerably demeaning diminished.” He said therefore, that in applying the two basic principles of urgency and public importance, “I do not see the urgency in this. While the issue of corruption is important to all of us, the urgency of the particular allegation I cannot accept and so I deny this request.”
The Motion presented by the Opposition Leader wanted the National Assembly to call on the government, “to take immediate action to ensure an independent, credible, and impartial investigation, by international investigators into the allegations of bribery, corruption and money laundering as revealed in the two documentaries released by Vice News,” involving VP Jagdeo. It wanted also for President Irfaan Ali to have Jagdeo step down from his post so that the probe could take place. It also said that Guyana is signatory to the United Nation Convention on Corruption, and the government is obligated to honour its anti-corruption commitment under the convention. Several individuals and organisations have called for a probe into the allegations against the government and particularly the VP, and according to the Motion, this too is reason for the National Assembly to support the probe to bring clarity to the allegations in the Vice News report.
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