NEWSDAY JUNE 30, 2K 14 Jack: MP recall bill an ‘election ploy’ By JULIEN NEAVES Monday, June 30 2014 INDEPENDENT Liberal Party (ILP) chairman and Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner has dismissed statements by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar that a bill to recall Members of Parliament was ready as an “election ploy”. “This last year before elections everything will be ready. Mark my words. Everything will be ready for elections next year and most of it will be half ready and half baked because there is a mad hustle and scramble to get things done and just simply to say ‘I (the Government) have achieved’ with little or no concern at all for refinement, accuracy and such,” he said. Persad-Bissessar, in an article in the Sunday Newsday yesterday, reported that the draft bill proposing a new mechanism for the recall of Members of Parliament had been completed by the Ministry of the Attorney General and would be tabled at Cabinet in a matter of weeks. The right to recall non-performing MPs was part of the People’s Partnership 2010 manifesto. Warner, a former Partnership Cabinet minister, told Newsday yesterday he was not surprised about the announcement with the general elections next year. He predicted that, at ten months to go before the elections, there will legislation about pensions, salaries, right of recall and a “host” of other things. He questioned about the promised legislation that would restrict a Prime Minister to two terms and whether that would be tabled as well. “Every single thing would be done this year, after four years (in power). Procurement, everything,” he said. He noted that he has not seen nor read the bill. People’s National Movement PRO Senator Faris Al-Rawi described it as “phenomenally interesting” that the Prime Minister should choose to announce the imminence of Cabinet’s legislation for the right of recall of MPs. Al-Rawi, referring to calls for Sport Minister Anil Roberts to be fired over the controversial Life Sport programme, said the country had suffered the Prime Minister’s “abdication of duty and her gross inconsistency in pretending to deal with ministers deserving of being fired summarily and removed from the seats which they occupy whilst offering up supposed legislation which only Newsday seems to be privy to and no one else”. “If this bill is in fact reality the population should pour scorn upon the pretense that this Government intends to unfold or unleash,” he added.
Posted on: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 11:47:30 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015