Member of the Cloth
2867 14 Jun, 2012
Deputy Speaker [Mrs. Backer]: Thank you Mr. Speaker. Earlier, we were educated on tuberculosis (TB). And later on the Hon. Prime Minster spoke about temptation and he went on, at great length, about the temptation that we all are exposed to and he spoke to human flesh being weak. I am wondering if there is a move to increase the number of “men of the cloth”, as Mr. Granger would say, on the Eastern side of the House. But Prime Minister please rest assured that if you become a “member of the cloth”, I would come to your church. Even if it is just to pass some time, I would come.
Mr. Prime Minister, you know we have always had a very cordial relationship. But I think you would agree with me when I say that your presentation on this motion was not your best in the sense that…one of the things I like about you is that you are always convinced. If you are wrong, you are convinced. If you are right you are convinced. That is an admirable trait. We learn that as lawyers, and the Attorney General (AG) would know that. He goes into court and has no case but is convinced. Sometimes he does not even have a client. The point is, Hon. Prime Minister that you are always convincing, but that was missing today.
Mr. Speaker, if I could, very briefly, it is not a difficult motion and I want to place on record, very unequivocally, that A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) has absolutely no trouble and no problem with the principle of submitting its finances and income to a duly constituted integrity commission.
I want to say that very slowly so that even my colleague Mr. Neendkumar can understand.
I want to go directly to what the Prime Minister’s Motion proposes to do. As I said, we have no problem with submission to a duly constituted integrity commission. In the first Whereas clause there is absolutely no problem, that is a fact. Yes, we support that. “AND WHEREAS the Commission and support staff were established shortly thereafter”, we find that unnecessary and in fact it is not true. The Hon. Prime Minister then goes on to speak about section 19 of the Act which empowers, according to the motion, the Commission and the President to publish the names of persons who are not in compliance. That is not true, worded as it is. Worded as it is, it is not very true, it is not accurate. As regards to persons in public life, it is the Commission and the Commission only who has the authority to publish names in the Gazette and in a daily newspaper. The President, Hon. Prime Minister, only has the right to publish the names of the Members of the Commission. That is the only thing His Excellency, the President, can do under the Act. To ask him to do anything else would be inviting the President to act outside of the law. I know, Hon. Prime Minister, you would not want to do that.
There are one or two other Whereas clauses I will come to. The gist of this whole motion, Hon. Prime Minister, and hence our proposed amendments is this, section 3 of the Integrity Commission Act of 1997, and just so that everyone in the House can understand, there was a 1991 Integrity Commission Act which was assented to by the then president Mr. Hugh Desmond Hoyte. If in fact, Prime Minister, you look at section 41 of the same 1997 Act you will see these words, and I quote, “The Integrity Commission Act of 1991 is hereby repealed.” So, it was in existence and in fact it not very dissimilar to what we have here. This one of course would have gone to a Select Committee, and the 1991 Act was also referred to there.
Section 3(a) says, “there is hereby established a Commission to be known as the Integrity Commission which shall consist of a Chairman and not less than two or more than four other members.” This gives the Integrity Commission potential for it to get life. You must have a Chairman, and under the Act, two or no more than four Commissioners. Our simple question to the Hon. Prime Minister is whether he would be kind enough to share with the National Assembly and by extension the Guyanese public the names of the Chairman and the two, three or four Commissioners as is provided by section 3. You see, if there is no Commission then who are you asking the Hon. Members of this House to submit their declarations to? This is where the problem comes in. If it were anyone else on the other side I would try to anguish them, but I would not do that to you.
So, I would like to read a letter to you, but I would not want the other Members on your side to hear. It says this and it is addressed to the Hon. David A. Granger, M.S.S, M.P., Leader of the Opposition, et cetera, dated 30th May 2012:
“Dear Hon. Mr. Granger,
With respect to your letter dated 9th May, 2012, please note that the Commission’s Membership came to an end on the 20th May, 2012 and as such there is no Commissioner or Chairman.”
It is signed by Amanda Jaisingh, the Secretary of the Integrity Commission. A Secretary of the Integrity Commission is writing to the Hon. Member Mr. Granger on the 30th saying that there is no Chairman or there are no Commissioners. That is why under section 3 there is a proposed first Resolved clause there in the amendments. It is very clear, it says here in our proposal, the first RESOLVED clause, “BE IT RESOLVED that this National Assembly calls on the President to establish the Integrity Commission as provided for in Section 3 of the Integrity Commission Act of 1997.” It is his Excellency the President that has to set up this Commission having consulted with the Leader of the Opposition. There is a President and there is a Leader of the Opposition. What we do not have is an Integrity Commission.
Who are we submitting these things to? Prime Minister, be assured our assets are so minimal that in ten minutes we filled up our forms. Sir, there is a noise from the eastern side. If Mr. Granger, the Hon. Leader of the Opposition, is consulted properly and names are put, we could hand it in. That is what we would have thought that when you have your Cabinet Meeting with your little tête-à-têtes with His Excellency the President that those would have been the things you would have talked about.
Yesterday someone had the audacity to say that the Hon. Member, Mr. Greenidge’s motion was a storm in a teacup. This is a teacup in a storm. Why I say this is because we have National Industrial and Commercial Investments Limited (NICIL) swirling around, we have National Communications Network (NCN). We have the airport of which the Hon. Speaker is so distraught that he says that this is national crisis. We have this storm and this little teacup in all this storm, you put the Integrity Commission. All the President has to do is to write the Hon. Leader of the Opposition. You know the Hon. Leader of the Opposition is a military man. If you ask him to come at fifteen hundred hours he would be there at fourteen, I am not sure, but I am trying to say ten minutes to three. He would be there at least ten minutes before, because that is the nature of the man. He does not have to worry.
Basically, the only real Resolved clause here that is of any moment if for us to through the motion call on His Excellency the President to establish the Integrity Commission. Hon. Prime Minister if on reflection you feel that we do not really need this motion, and tomorrow when you see His Excellency you say, “Chief, we made a mistake here, but Mrs. Backer, the nuisance in the National Assembly, said that section 3 could save us”. If you would want to withdraw it we would have no problem; I would withdraw my amendments also.
The other danger Hon. Prime Minister, in some of your Resolved clauses, is that you are trying to encourage His Excellency to step outside of the law. This is your fifth Resolved clause and it says, “That this House calls on the President to disclose to the Speaker annually the names of those Members of Parliament in default.” How is the President going to know who is in default? This Act speaks about penalty for disclosure and under this Act only the Chairman and the Commissioner is supposed to know about us. Only they are supposed to know about us, so the Speaker cannot ask the Deputy Speaker if she submitted. He may ask, but the Deputy Speaker may say, “Sir, with the greatest respect I will answer to the Commission.” The only persons that His Excellency has authority to deal with are the Chairman and the Commissioners themselves.
We have to remove this clause. If we do not, the next thing that will happen is that Mr. Nandlall will bring an action against His Excellency the President. It sounds farfetched, but in the current matter before the Court the Minister of Finance is the third known defendant. He has brought an action against his own Minister. We do not know where else the Hon. Attorney General is going. We want to protect the President. I want to protect the President.
The Resolved clause before it, “That this House conducts an annually voluntary monitoring exercise of compliance…” how is this voluntary monitoring exercise going to proceed? How is this voluntary monitoring exercise that will be done annually going to proceed? If you can assist us with that, we may be prepared to look at it but, we do not see how it can. We have to submit to a duly constituted Commission, and APNU, and I would like to repeat it, APNU is ready and steady and we just want to hear “go”. We are ready and we are steady and we are waiting to hear “go” to submit our return, our income, our assets, our blind trust and all the things that they talked about to a duly... [Mr. Nandlall: Globe Trust.] …even that. We are going to do it with NICIL. We are going to have a simultaneous something. [Mr. Ramajattan: Ill-conceived.]
Mr. Ramjattan is saying “ill-conceived”. You know, Prime Minister, I would have said that if it were not you, but I have a fondness for you. Sir, I think they misled you. I believe you were misled. I do not want to say that it was the Attorney General. You know how they say the usual suspects; I do not want to say the usual suspects. I hope it is not the religious advisers. I hope it is not the men of cloth, who because they are no longer in one Commission want to go on another Commission. [Dr. Norton: What about the political advisers?] No, do not let us worry with that. Let us leave Ms. Teixeira alone.
Sir, coming back to it, it is a simple administrative, almost, task that His Excellency has to carry out. We invite him to consult, as is provided in the Act, with the Leader of the Opposition, and submit the names. After that, once it is duly constituted, A Partnership for National Unity will be first in line with their declarations. Thank you very much. [Applause]
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