Georgetown: The issue of whether there is a plan afoot to stall the amended Local Government Bills was flatly refuted by Cabinet Secretary Dr. Roger Luncheon, during his post-Cabinet media briefing recently.
He contended that it is well known that Government’s Chief Whip Gail Teixeira has expressed some concerns about the constitutionality of some of the bills proposed by the political opposition. “Presidential Advisor Ms. Teixeira had a cause to reflect on the constitutional provision of the procedure, the parliament concluded the preparation of the enacted bill, then the chief parliamentary counsel in the ministry of legal affairs confirms that this indeed reflects what was agreed to in parliament.”
Dr Luncheon said that if necessary, the bills would then attract the attention of the parliament and parliamentary officials, who would engage in making the appropriate corrections,
“Before a document that says to the president this enacted bill is given to you with the assurances of the legal affairs and the attorney general that you can go ahead and enact, we must be careful in the fact that a bill has not been assented to, that there is a specific, and there is only one reason for that being so”.
According to the Head of the Presidential Secretariat, the procedure must be followed and all parliamentarians should be aware of this. He added that Local Government Minister Ganga Persaud recently committed to local government elections, but this too depends on the actual assent by the President before such elections can take place. This, he reiterated, was dependent on the various steps that must be followed before any bill can reach the Head of State’s desk.
You must be logged in to post a comment.