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Leader Of The Opp Complains About Hurry-Up House Meeting
posted (July 27, 2012)
PM Barrow gave us that interview outside the House Chamber - but inside he was just as feisty.

On a statement of public interest, Leader of the opposition Francis Fonseca complained about the short notice that had been given for the special sitting. The special sitting was only announced three days ago.

Fonseca said it undermines democracy when that happens and the PM fired back - here's their exchange:

Hon. Francis Fonseca, Leader of the Opposition
"On what basis Mr. Speaker has this meeting been designated a special sitting. According to the standing orders special sittings are meetings held on a date and time other than Friday at 10am or meetings held within the recess period establish under standing order 11. We are not in such a recess period. That is the first issue Mr. Speaker, we would seek you clarification of. The second issue Mr. Speaker is as you are aware members of this side of the House had proposed some 10 questions for ministers to the House meeting of June 29th 2012. At that time you had indicated Mr. Speaker that the questions could not be allowed for that meeting because they had been receive late and while we did not agree we respected that decision with the legitimate expectation that those questions would then be traversed to a later meeting sitting of the House as has always been the practice. Again today we come here and those questions which involves issues of critical importance to those we represent and indeed we believe to the Belizean people do not form a part of the agenda. Respectfully Mr. Speaker we believe that this makes a mockery of our democracy and is a very serious disrespect to the 14 elected representatives on this side of the House. We view this as an ongoing pattern of disrespect and obvious effort to frustrate the asking of tough questions to ministers and really to stifle the debate on bills of national importance."

Prime Minister Dean Barrow
"There are exigent circumstances. In this particular case Mr. Speaker every bill that is on the agenda is a bill only to be introduce only for first reading. The silly accusation/allegation made by the opposition by way of a press release that they are expected to come here and debate bills that they only get sight of when they get into the House precings is nonsensical. All that we are asking is leave to introduce these bills. They will then have 2 or 3 or 4 weeks - a month or so to digest the bills before we come back for a debate and the reason we are introducing these bills today and we did not give as much notice for the House meeting as we would normally do is because there is a timeline, there is a deadline involved. We have a matrix of obligations that we've contracted with the Inter-American Development Bank in return of the bank's assistance with our re-structuring exercise."

"The point I am trying to make Mr. Speaker is there absolutely nothing sinister. This is not like when they used to call special meetings to pass bills all at once that were injurious to the public interest of this country. These are all bills that are to replace in the context of reform. On the question of questions Mr. Speaker again, of they only read the" blinkin" blessed standard orders. There is nothing that says that questions have to be for oral answers. You can ask you questions, you can submit questions to ministers and we are duty bound to provide you written answers."

"They submitted questions on the last occasion that violate the required notice period. You talk about giving you notice; when you were giving the notice you fail to comply. The standing orders say in such a case those cannot e asked, they cannot be listed by the Speaker for oral answers. They then are passed on and you can get written answers to those questions."

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