VP warns against Guyana’s Parliamentary breaches becoming normalised

…after Bahamas parliamentary mace controversy sparks déjà vu

Guyana which is well-acquainted with contentious moments in the National Assembly, prompting Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo to issue a stern warning about the risk of such incidents becoming the norm.
His warning comes on the heels of recent events in the Bahamas, where the deputy opposition leader grabbed and hurled the Bahamas parliamentary mace through a window during a heated debate over corruption and the indictment of senior police officers.
It is a moment eerily similar to December 29, 2021, when several opposition Members of Parliament (MP’s) in Guyana’s National Assembly grabbed the ceremonial mace and then engaged in a tug-of-war with parliamentary staff and Speaker of the National Assembly Manzoor Nadir himself. While these MPs were punished, Jagdeo expressed concern over other breaches in the National Assembly that tend to fly under the radar.
“I think our speaker is a little more accommodating (than in Bahamas). In Guyana’s case the matter went to the committee of privileges. And they agreed on disciplinary measures, which were then implemented. So, I agree with that,” Jagdeo said during his press conference.

“The routine stuff we see in our parliament. What may be an unusual thing for the Bahamas, we see it routinely in our parliament. The distortion of facts, without any consequences. We saw Patterson stand up on the floor and lie about Amaila Falls. Said power was coming in at (25) cents per kilowatt (kW). Without any censorship. He should have been censored for lying to the parliament.”
This is likely a reference to Alliance For Change (AFC) point man on energy, David Patterson, who caught flak in 2023 for claiming during that year’s examination of the budget, that the Norwegians had informed the former Government in 2015 that electricity from the Amaila Falls Hydropower Project would cost US 25 cents per kW.
He had also claimed that this cost was subsequently revised to US 30 cents per kW, taking into account the overall cost of the project. However, Jagdeo had subsequently clarified that the cost was always going to be US 10 cents per kilowatt and had threatened to have Patterson taken to the Committee of Privileges.

“So, if we allow people to get away with these things, after a while it becomes normalised. And that’s why I’ve almost moved on mentally from what they say in parliament,” Jagdeo went on to say at his press conference.
The mace grabbing incident in Guyana’s National Assembly, which occurred while the Government was attempting to pass the Natural Resources Fund Bill of 2021, resulted in eight APNU/AFC MPs being suspended from parliamentary sittings for various periods. Those eight MPs were Chief Whip Christopher Jones, Ganesh Mahipaul, Sherod Duncan, Natasha Singh-Lewis, Annette Ferguson, Vinceroy Jordan, Tabitha Sarabo-Halley and Maureen Philadelphia.
When the matter was brought before the Privileges Committee, it was recommended that Jones, Mahipaul, Duncan and Singh-Lewis be each suspended for four consecutive sittings for attempting to prevent the second and third readings of the NRF Bill, and for conducting themselves in a gross, disorderly, contumacious and disrespectful manner, and repeatedly ignoring the authority of the Assembly and that of the Speaker, and thereby committing contempt and breaches of privileges.
A recommendation was also made for MPs Ferguson and Jordan to each be suspended for six consecutive sittings for a similar offence. However, their suspension was higher, since the Committee concurred that they had committed “serious violations which were severe and egregious by unauthorisedly removing the Parliamentary Mace from its rightful position in a disorderly fashion, causing damage to the Mace, injuring and assaulting a staff of the Parliament Office, while attempting to remove the Mace from the Chamber”.
Meanwhile, a similar recommendation of suspension for six consecutive sittings was made against Sarabo-Halley, whose violations were found to be “severe and egregious with regard to unauthorisedly entering the communication control room of the ACCC and destroying several pieces of audio-visual equipment, being public property”.
Suspension was also recommended for MP Philadelphia, for six consecutive sittings over her severe and egregious violations, whereby she “verbally assaulted a staff of the Parliament Office within the precincts of the National Assembly”.
The MPs would go on to lose three court cases, in the first two cases the High Court and the Demerara Full Court refused their applications for interim orders that, among other things, would have allowed them to attend sittings of the National Assembly. They then had their substantive case to overturn their suspensions, thrown out in January 2023 by High Court Judge Damone Younge.