Parliamentary Footnotes
Missing Tables
MYSTERY stalked the Parliament chambers last week Tuesday and walked arm in arm with fashion as the House was thrown into confusion over a case of some missing documents.
Speaker Mr. Sase Narain was forced to suspend the session for half-an-hour to allow Finance Minister Mr. Carl Greenidge time to find out what had happened with the documents and this respite saw a splendidly bedecked Mrs. Agnes Bend-Kirton (People’s National Congress Member) parading her finery in the usually staid Chambers.
Bend-Kirton was outfitted with a white, floral broad rimmed hat, dangling earrings, a peach shift and matching shoes and broad framed glasses and she cut a dashing figure as she mingled with colleagues during the adjournment.
Her sartorial splendour was however at odds with the aura of mystery over a series of tables that were discovered missing from the 1987 Budget Estimates of Current and Capital revenue and expenditure.
The case of the missing documents had been drawn to the Speaker’s attention in separate letters by People’s Progressive Party (PPP) Leader Dr. Cheddi Jagan and Working People’s Alliance (WPA) Coleader Mr. Eusi Kwayana.
When the session began, Mr. Greenidge announced that Government, despite its “best efforts” had been unable to provide Parliamentarians with printed copies of his January 16 budget speech on the same day.
Members should have had two clear days to study the speech before the debate began and because of the delayed delivery of copies to members, Greenidge suggested the session be adjourned to allow further study of the proposals.
Kwayana however, pointed out that Greenidge had not dealt with “the absence of vital tables from the estimates” previously circulated.
The Speaker explained that some tables had been circulated, but Jagan rose to announce documents were still missing from the estimates.
_With Dr. Jagan and Mr. Kwayana the Speaker then went through the list of tables which were supposed to have been included in the estimates and found a number of them, were indeed missing. Greenidge then surprisingly announced the tables were also missing from his copy and officials were trying to establish what (had) happened to them.
The Speaker tried to get a firm explanation from the Finance Minister but he said while he understood the Speaker’s concern he was “not really in a position to answer. ” SOLUTION Mr. Narain then adjourned the sitting for thirty minutes in an effort to get the mystery “clarified” and members broke into huddles as officials sought a solution.
The informal gatherings soon gave way to normalcy when the sitting was resumed and the Speaker announced the tables had been circulated and pronounced the estimates “now in order.”
The mystery of the missing tables however was not explained as the reasons for their non-appearance were not given.
Parliament was then adjourned to January 26.