Questions still remain unanswered

Questions still remain unanswered

User Rating:

/ 0

Details: Parent Category: Dec 2011; Category: Week ending Dec 10th, 2011; Published on Monday, 19 December 2011 16:27; Hits: 379

Farmers’ Representative in the Senate, Keith Clouden has expressed annoyance with government’s lackadaisical handling of questions put to the Senate for answers.

Last week, Clouden attempted to bring a motion into the Senate to force the Tillman Thomas-led government to respond to his questions dating back to 2009.

The farmer’s representative became irate when his five questions submitted to the Senate since the Third Session of the Eighth Parliament was again responded to in the negative by Leader of Government Business in the Senate, Senator George Prime.

Clouden asked the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Chester Humphrey who was sitting in the Chair to allow a Motion under Section 25 (i) of the Standing Orders of the Senate to censor the government.

But to the disappointment of the farmer’s representative, he quoted the wrong section of the Standing Orders and as such could not proceed with the Motion.

However, Sen. Humphrey expressed full support to the intention of Sen. Clouden to get this long-standing issue addressed and suggested that he present a substantive motion at the next sitting to deal with the matter.

“I understand your difficulty... it is really a serious problem,” said Sen. Humphrey, the most senior member of the Senate.

He indicated that Section 59 of the Constitution outlines the responsibilities of the Cabinet, which includes advising the Governor General, and that, the Cabinet is responsible to Parliament.

“If you are not in a position to answer those questions and to do so consistently, it means that the role of Parliament is being undermined”, he said.

According to Sen. Humphrey, he hopes that Sen. Clouden’s motion will deal with this issue and for the situation to be remedied.

He lashed out at “this consistent contempt to my mind of the Senate”, adding that the time has come for Senators to preserve the integrity of the Parliament and to make it more functional.

“Questions have to be answered, there is not an alternative”, he said.

Leader of Government Business in the Senate, George Prime, said he will again attempt to have the questions answered.

“I’m afraid that I still have not been able to get responses to the questions put by the Honourable Senator Clouden at this juncture”, he told the Senate.

Most of Sen. Clouden’s questions that remain unanswered relate to the Garden Group Hotels Ltd, government-owned estates and the Irrigation and Drainage Unit (IDU) in the Ministry of Agriculture.

They are as follows:

(1.) Could the Senate be provided with a copy of the Trust Deed between the Government of Grenada and the Inter-commercial Trust and Merchant Bank for the loan of 8.9 million US dollar for the Garden Group Hotel Ltd?

(2). (a) Who was the person or persons from the Garden Group Hotels Project that traveled to London/Geneva between June/July 2003 to open a bank account in Geneva?

(b) With which institutions and countries did the Garden Group Hotels have bank accounts?

(3) Could the Senate be informed as to who gave authorization to invest 2.5 million US dollars of Garden Group Hotels loan funds in SG 120% bonds and what is the status of those bonds?

(4). (a) Could the Senate be provided with the names, location, acreage, crop cultivation and size of the labour force of each Government owned estate?

(b) What are the short and medium term development plans for each estate?

(5). (a) Did the Government of Grenada Audit Department recently conduct an audit of the Irrigation and Drainage Unit (IDU) in the Ministry of Agriculture?

(b) What period of time in the IDU’s operation was examined in the Audit?

(c) Could the Senate be informed of the three (3) most significant findings and recommendations emanating from the Audit Report?

(d) What actions, if any, has the Ministry taken or instituted since receiving the audited reports?

(e) Could the Senate be provided with copies of the certified Audited Report?