Last updated on Wednesday, 23 December 2020, 12:43 by Denis Chabrol
House Speaker Manzoor Nadir ruled on Wednesday that senators, who are at the Arthur Chung Conference Center, will no longer be allowed to participate in the sittings.
“I trust that the Honorary Members, who observe and participate in rooms at the Arthur Chung Convention Center, will find it fit to enter the dome. After today, if you are here now I will not be allowing your participation more or less, ”he said.
Mr Nadir issued his directive after Minister for Governance and Parliamentary Affairs Gail Teixeira raised concerns over the absence of a Partnership for National Unity + Alliance for Change (APNU + AFC) from the dome at the Center where parliamentary sittings are held .
He described it as a “bizarre incident” that opposition legislators were in a room at the Center but were more or less involved. “This is a kind of boycott, yet participation and I think this House should not tolerate it. If they’re in this building, they should be in this House to talk, ”said Teixeira who is also the government’s Chief Whip.
He says they were, instead, in other rooms at the Arthur Chung Conference Center even though they were not out of town or unharmed. “It’s not to be abused by the opposition, to sit in this building and use the Internet and everything in another room. Mr Speaker, we cannot tolerate this, we cannot accept this. This is beyond what is acceptable in this House, ‘Ms Teixeira said.
hat Center is the venue for National Assembly sittings to allow for appropriate social distance due to the COVID-19 pandemic.