After damaging exposure of Govt corruption
Opposition Member of Parliament, Juan Edghill has been summoned before the Privileges Committee of the National Assembly over the recent exposure of corruption and violations of procurement laws within the coalition Administration.
In a statement on Saturday, the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) revealed that the parliamentarian will appear before the body on Monday at 14:00h; a move which the Party said is a continuation of the coalition Government’s witchhunting and political vindictive campaign.
According to the missive, the summons was issued on the heels of Edghill’s damaging expose in recent weeks of massive corruption and deliberate avoidance of, the Procurement Act and its accompanying processes involving billions of taxpayers’ dollars spent by the Administration, unlawfully, in the health sector as well as blatant violations of the Fiscal Management and Accountability Act in respect to spending by the Ministry of the Presidency and the Office of the Prime Minister.
“We consider the political persecution of Bishop Edghill not only to be an assault on democracy but an attempt to muzzle him in the discharge of his democratic and constitutional duty as a Member of Parliament, to scrutinise and expose unlawful actions, abuse of power and lack of transparency on the part of the Government,” the Party said.
It went on to outline that this move is also an abrogation of the constitutional and democratic rights of the Guyanese citizenry, who are entitled to be informed of how their taxpayers’ dollars are being spent nay squandered.
The PPP pointed out that the nation is aware that muzzling, harassment, intimidation, arrest and charging of parliamentarians, critics and political opponents, are all known and well used methods of the People’s National Congress in the past and now being continued by the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change coalition. Events of these types are well known and documented. In fact, the Party said it is apposite to remind of the Tenth Parliament, where, even while in Opposition, this authoritarian strategy was used. For instance, it recalled former Home Affairs Minister and MP Clement Rohee was gagged from speaking for nearly one year. It took an order of the Chief Justice to impugn the “crass unconstitutionality” and to restore Rohee’s right as an MP to speak and the rights of the Guyanese electorate to have him speak on their behalf, PPP reminded.
This time, the Party added, Edghill is being dragged before the Privileges Committee for simply disclosing to the Guyanese taxpayers the cost of the increase in remuneration, personnel and portfolios which the coalition Government have imposed on them, almost one billion dollars for their term in office.
“We maintain most resolutely that this is information to which the people of Guyana are entitled,” the missive from the Opposition party said.
Furthermore, PPP sought to highlight that when the Minister of Finance had contested Bishop Edghill’s calculation and he produced a different set of figures, the Parliament Office did a computation which was in fact different from that of Edghill and the Finance Minister.
The Party noted that the Minister disclosed his figures in a speech in the National Assembly, as Bishop Edghill did and therefore, both the Finance Minister and the Parliament Office should appear before the Privilege’s Committee, as well.
“However, we are convinced that putting Bishop Edghill before the Privileges Committee has very little to do with the accuracy of his computations. It has more to do with attempting to silence, intimidate and threaten him and to break his spirit so that he will not subject the Administration to the rigorous scrutiny, damning exposure and incisive criticisms as he has been doing,” the Opposition asserted.
Nevertheless, the Party is alerting the diplomatic community and organisations advocating transparency, good governance and democracy, of the attack on parliamentary democracy in Guyana.
