Independent Senator Rolph Balgobin yesterday appealed to the Government to bring to Parliament for approval new procurement legislation. He made the call during his contribution to yesterday’s senate debate on the 2015 budget. The $64.4 billion package was presented earlier by Finance and the Economy Minister Larry Howai in the Senate. Balgobin said the legislation should be part of the legal framework as “it is the only way to address corruption.”
Balgobin said corruption was being fought in the country through the media. In seeking to clarify the claim, Balgobin said, “People pointing fingers at other people, people leaking things (and) they’re dropping things in your post box.” But he said no ordered and organised country operated that way. “Let us have the procurement legislation, let us have transparency in procurement,” he added.
He said he wanted to know why no one was jailed after the Clico/HCU Commission of Enquiry. He also said he wanted to know what was the status of the e-mailgate probe. Balgobin noted that the investigator in that probe, deputy Commissioner of Police Mervyn Richardson, had retired and the matter was still incomplete.
He also spoke about the July 2011 Caribbean Airlines plane crash in Guyana. He said up to yesterday he was unable to get the transcript of that crash in which several passengers were injured. He said those situations were part of the conspiracy of silence that existed in the country.
Balgobin also spoke about the need to develop a policy on local content. He said he felt citizens here drank more Johnnie Walker whiskey “than anybody else in the entire world” and during the deepest recession people still drank champagne in the country.
He said there was still a preference for foreign goods, and that even the water provided in Parliament for legislators was foreign. He said that national inferiority complex must be confronted head on.
The debate is expected to continue at the Tower D, International Waterfront Centre, today.
