Teixeira’s motion to have PM, Trotman face Privileges Committee thrown out

Opposition Chief Whip Gail Teixeira’s motion to have Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo and Natural Resources Minister Raphael Trotman committed to the Parliament’s Committee of Privileges over ‘misleading statements’ made in the National Assembly was on Monday thrown out.
“I hold the test as to whether there exists a prima facie case… I have examined the letter and other relevant documents and have concluded that a prima facie case has not been made and the request disallowed,” said the Speaker of the National Assembly, Dr Barton Scotland.
In April, Teixeira had written the Speaker of the National Assembly and lodged a complaint against the two senior Government officials. She was contending that Trotman, during his budget speech earlier this year, said when the coalition Government assumed office, it had found that 100 per cent of Guyana’s productive forests were hived off. This notion was reiterated by Prime Minister Nagamootoo.
Teixeira, thus, called on the Speaker to have Trotman and Nagamootoo withdraw their statements and apologise.
Dr Scotland explained to the Parliament that after having received Teixeira’s letter of complaint and accompanying motion, he assumed the task in the determination of whether a case had been made out against the two officials.
He said he had determined that was insufficient evidence to commit either of the men to the Committee for breach of privileges.
Teixeira had stated that the two men could have withdrawn their erroneous statements but they proceeded to continue to hold fast to their positions in the face of “evidence to the contrary”.
Trotman had stated in the House that, “We were met with an alarming situation where we discovered that 100 per cent or all of our productive forest was allocated by the past Government.”