A letter of protests will be filed on Monday morning by the UP Faction to the President of Parliament.
The UP would like to refer the President of Parliament to the objection by MP Jules James during the end of the second round not to move to end the meeting due to the absence of the Minister of Health, Social Development and Labour to actively take part in the budget deliberation.
We heard the Minister wasn’t feeling well at the time of the continuation of the Central Committee meeting. If this is the case, then the Minister of Health should have authorized his Secretary General to come to the House to provide answers to questions posed or the President of Parliament should have postponed the meeting to a later date.
The Minister of Health we were informed sent some answers to questions at 1.30am on Saturday, but the document was not signed and wasn’t addressed to the honourable Members of Parliament. You do not treat the highest elected legislative body in that manner. Anybody could have written those answers, and this is unacceptable.
The key point is that MPs were not able to ask the Minister of Health clarification on their questions posed. Rather than postponing the meeting as in the case of both Minister of Finance Tuitt and Minister of Tourism and Economic Affairs Pantophlet who needed more time to respond to the many questions posed in the first round, the President of Parliament insisted to close off the second round, not acknowledging the objection.
The Constitution makes provisions for how this should be handled.
Seeing that none of the above actions were taken by the President of Parliament, the UP faction is serving official notice on Monday morning to the President of Parliament and the Government, that should this objection not be heeded, the UP faction will use all legal means available at its disposal to take this matter further.
The UP faction is giving the President of Parliament an opportunity to correct this matter before proceeding to the plenary session on Monday morning at 10.00am.
Sylvia Meyers
Interim Faction Leader United People’s (UP) Party
Member of Parliament
Sunday, April 14, 2013