Sherod Duncan suspended from Parliament over unruly display, defiance

…refused to heed multiple warnings from Speaker

Alliance For Change (AFC) Member of Parliament (MP) Sherod Duncan, who on Wednesday strode into the parliamentary chambers while the Committee of Supply was in session and began hurling insults across the aisle at a Government MP, has been suspended from the National Assembly.

At the time of Duncan’s outburst, the Committee of Supply had been examining the 2022 budget estimates for the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development. As A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) MP Vinceroy Jordan was about to ask a question, Duncan entered the chambers and immediately began hurling insults at the subject Minister, Nigel Dharamlall, disrupting the sitting in the process.
Duncan’s invective against Minister Dharamlall included the use of words like “nasty”, which is generally acknowledged as unparliamentary language. Despite repeated orders from Speaker of the House Manzoor Nadir to take his seat, Duncan ignored the Speaker and continued his stream of insults against the Minister.

“Honourable member Mr Duncan… honourable member Mr Duncan… honourable member Mr Duncan…could you please take your seat…honourable member Mr Duncan,” the Speaker implored, at which point Duncan shouted “I will not take my seat!”
After his demands that Duncan withdraw from the National Assembly went unheeded, Nadir then asked Minister of Governance and Parliamentary Affairs Gail Teixeira, who is also the Government’s Chief Whip, to table a motion requesting Duncan’s suspension from Parliament for four sittings. This Teixeira almost immediately did.
“Mr Speaker, based on the behaviour of the member and disrespect to you as the Speaker of this House, I move that the honourable member who is not speaking from his seat, he is not in his chair, be suspended from the House for the next (four) sittings,” Teixeira moved.
After Nadir put the question, the motion was passed with the Government side voting for the motion and the Opposition voting against it. The sitting subsequently went on a suspension. When the sitting resumed, APNU/AFC MPs had vacated their seats. The business of the Committee of Supply then continued, with no one in attendance from the Opposition to ask any questions.
After the allocations to Region Five were approved, Dharamlall made a statement on the parliamentary floor in which he apologised to the Speaker and to the House for any unparliamentary statements he may have made during the sitting.
“Earlier today, this House had some issues which we believe became very heated. And so I would like, Mr Speaker, to indicate to you that if I said anything that was misconstrued that it was not my intention to make those statements to that effect.”
“And if there were statements which were also unparliamentary on my part during the course of the interrogations, then I would like to withdraw that,” Dharamlall further said, to the applause of his fellow MPs.
Shortly before Duncan’s outburst, Minister Dharamlall had upbraided the APNU/AFC for what he called their duplicity when it comes to installing street lights. According to him, the former Government victimised communities perceived as being pro-PPP, while Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDCs) like Profit/Rising Sun and Bath/Woodley Park, pro-APNU/AFC, receive sizeable allocations from the current Government.
“I had the indignity of being in Bath settlement, where my mother is from, and … it hurts, that they removed every single streetlight in Bath settlement when they were in Government. It hurts. They went to Cotton Tree and Blairmont and Bush Lot and did the same,” Dharamlall said.
Duncan is already one of eight APNU/AFC MPs currently before the Privileges Committee, for the infamous Mace grab of December 29, when APNU/AFC members protested the hearing of the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) Bill, which they wanted to be sent to a parliamentary Special Select Committee for review.
Coalition MPs stood banging on their desks when the Bill was called up for debate and subsequently gathered in the pit of the dome of the Arthur Chung Conference Centre (ACCC), where National Assembly sittings are being held due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Bill was eventually passed late into the evening but not before the Opposition’s protest escalated into a physical confrontation with Parliament staff after one of the parliamentarians snatched the Parliament Mace from in front of Speaker Nadir.
For that, eight APNU/AFC MPs were sent to the Privileges Committee, including Duncan, Chief Whip Christopher Jones, and other members, Annette Ferguson, Ganesh Mahipaul, Natasha Singh-Lewis, Vinceroy Jordan, Tabitha Sarabo-Halley, and Maureen Philadelphia. (G3)