The National Assembly, in the wee hours of Friday, adopted the recommendations of the Committee of Privileges to have eight Opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) be suspended from future sittings.
Minister of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance Gail Teixeira moved the motion on behalf of the Committee of Privileges to have the eight members suspended.
The Opposition MPs are Annette Ferguson, Christopher Jones, Ganesh Mahipaul, Vinceroy Jordan, Tabitha Sarabo-Halley, Sherod Duncan, Maureen Philadelphia, and Natasha Singh-Lewis.
On December 29, 2021, while the Senior Minister in the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh, was debating the Natural Resource Fund (NRF) Bill of 2021, the Parliamentarians attempted to hijack and derail the sitting.
Ferguson attempted to seize the Parliament’s ceremonial symbol, the mace off the Speaker’s desk, and other MPs tried to do the same, which was caught on video.
Minister Teixeira told the National Assembly that the level of collective vulgarity by members of the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) camp could not be treated lightly.
The Privileges Committee asked the eight members to show cause as to why sanctions should not be meted out to them, but they all denied the allegation.
“The problem was we were all members of the house, we all witnessed, every member of the house cannot say that they did not see what they saw and what was captured video and audio that day, by not only the official media of the government but the private media, social media, and other persons who had their cameras in the house,” the Minister stated.
According to Minister Teixeira, the Committee felt that they could not condone such behaviour and as such, recommendations were made to have them suspended.
The motion was supported by Deputy Speaker Lennox Shuman, who said he hopes the Opposition MPs learn from this incident.
The Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs also supported the motion, and it was passed around 01:00h.
Sarabo-Halley, Jordan, Ferguson, and Philadelphia were suspended for six consecutive sittings of the National Assembly, while Mahipaul, Duncan, Jones, and Singh-Lewis were suspended for four consecutive sittings of the National Assembly.
The eight Parliamentarians have already moved to the High Court, seeking to nullify the suspension.
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