Opposition to step up scrutiny of Gov’t

The Opposition People’s Progressive Party says it will be implementing more measures to better scrutinize the work of the Government, especially the Oil and Gas sector.

Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo today expressed his dissatisfaction with the work being done by PPP Members of Parliament (MPs) when it comes to asking pertinent questions at the level of Parliamentary Sectoral Committees.

While he defended the MPs saying that “they’re clever people, they’re just not specialists in the areas,” he pointed out that more preparation is needed.

The Sectoral Committees is made up of Government and Opposition parliamentarians and provide a forum for the Ministry and organizations under that sector to be scrutinized.

Jagdeo said he met with members of the Natural Resources Committee on Wednesday and while he is happy with the work done by the committee thus far, he is not satisfied that his party members “do enough preparation to hold the government to account on critical matters to the country.”

Opposition members on that Committee are Pauline Campbell-Sukhai, Neendkumar and Yvonne P. Fredericks while the committee is chaired by Odinga Lumumba. The Government is represented by Joseph Harmon, Ronald Bulkan, Audwin Rutherford and Jermaine Figueira.

The Committee met recently were Minister of Indigenous People’s Affairs, Sydney Allicock made an appearance. At that meeting, the majority of the questions were asked by Lumumba. Over the next month, the Committee is likely to see appearances from the Minister of Public Infrastructure, David Patterson and officials from ExxonMobil.

The Opposition Leader, however, acknowledged that additional preparation is needed at the level of all committees.

The Sectoral Committees have the power to examine all policies and administration for each sector to determine whether the execution of projects and policies are done in the best interest of the nation.