CATEGORY:BUDGET DEBATE
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By Wallace J.A
Inside Grenada correspondent
Thursday December 21,2006


TRADE CENTER, Grand Anse: After a very dramatic session in Grenada’s Parliament yesterday, involving the Parliamentary Representative for the Town of St. George, Hon. Peter David, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Lawrence Joseph, the entire opposition team got up and walked out of Parliament in protest.

The disagreement arose when Hon Peter David started speaking about the much talked about ‘Briefcase Issue’ in Parliament. The Speaker of the House then ruled that the member should not get into any substantive detail since the matter was under investigation and it could be prejudicial to the parties concerned. He further advised the opposition member that he should get on with the debate of the budget. David, however, felt otherwise, and proceeded to comment on the same issue, claiming that he was referring to information that was public knowledge. The matter got to a stage where the Speaker of the House had to ask for a ten-minute recess to talk to members of both sides of the House in his chamber.

When Parliament resumed, the Leader of the Opposition, Hon. Tilman Thomas, rose and spoke in support of Peter David’s intention to persist with the matter of the “Brief Case.” Reference was made by the opposition to the case in Trinidad and Tobago involving the Chief Justice and his alleged attempt to subvert the course of justice in the Basdeo Panday trial. The Speaker of the House remained adamant in his ruling, however, and this resulted in the members of the opposition walking out of Parliament.

The Speaker subsequently informed the House that during the ten-minute break, he had spoken to delegations from both sides and the understanding was that the matter was settled and that they would continue with the debate.

During the budget debate (up to this present time), members of both teams in Parliament were guilty of making allegations about members on the other side and frequently took personal shots at each other. Members of the opposition were frequently accused of quoting inaccurate figures and making erroneous statements in their presentations by members of the Government side, and at some time, a member from the government side was accused by the opposition of making unsubstantiated statements alleging that a member on their side had made certain unsavory pronouncements in court.

On some of the local radio call-in programmes this morning (Dec. 21), many Grenadians called in to voice their views on what had transpired in Parliament yesterday. While some persons strongly condemned the opposition for walking out of Parliament and showing open dissent by not abiding with the ruling of the Speaker of the House, others tend to agree with their action, feeling that the Speaker was not being fair in his rulings. The one thread of concord, however, that seems to connect these politically polarized views, is that the elected parliamentarians were not acting in a professional manner and were not dealing with the substantive matters pertaining to the Estimates of Revenue and Expenditure for 2007. In the words of one caller, “Dem politicians an’ dem should allow de school chil’ren an dem to debate de Budget an sit down an watch dem.”