When you lie to Parliament you lie to the people

Dear Editor,

The pharmaceutical bond scandal has raised an issue that your columns have not adequately addressed – the seriousness of the act of “misleading” Parliament. Whatever the wordmechanics and spin-doctors call it, this is lying, plain and simple. Lying to fellow parliamentarians is, as one source put it, “a profoundly serious matter,” an offence that in this country we do not consider with the gravity it deserves. Over the years our diminished standards of decency and sensitivity have made us oblivious to the sanctity of Parliament. We forget that when you lie to Parliament, you lie to the people.

The ministerial code in Scotland requires all ministers to automatically resign if they mislead Parliament. In the UK, birthplace of our Westminster system, government ministers who mislead Parliament often lose their portfolios. This offence was taken so seriously that four years ago, senior MPs agreed that it should constitute a criminal offence. They actually debated whether lying MPs should be arrested and charged, and go to prison and be expelled from Parliament if convicted. Months later there was a petition to make it a criminal offence, as it is in Queensland, Australia. Why, then, should the people who make our laws here in Guyana not be held to the same civilised standards?

I have previously touched on the irony of electing to office, people whom we trust to run the business of government when almost all of them have little or no experience in running even a small business successfully. These people learn on the job at our expense. If it were their money, they would not be so criminally reckless in their decisions. Any selfrespecting businessman would have easily negotiated a far lower shortterm rental with the New Guyana Pharmacutical Corporation NGPC while he made arrangements to build a bond himself.

But it gets worse. We also elect to office many people who have a personal track record of boorishness and incivility. It is totally unacceptable that this behaviour should be carried over to an institution as venerable as Parliament. Just three years ago, a very senior minister in our present government, then an MP, was himself accused of lying to Parliament ‒ an act described by one parliamentarian as “alarmingly unethical and disrespectful.” But parliamentarians on the other side proved to be no different. Some months ago a friend heard the deliberations in Parliament for the first time. He was astounded over what he said sounded like a fish-market on both sides and asked whether those were representatives of the people, and what kind of example they were setting for the young people in Guyana.

So it seems that at every election we vote for people who are unqualified for the job, and whose cultural behaviour both in and out of office, makes poor role models for our youth and poor examples for our country. If we want to change as a nation, we have to hold our politicians to much higher standards. If we don’t, we can only blame ourselves. Yours faithfully, Clairmont Lye