Dookeran slams Joan for defending Cro Cro

UNC MP Winston Dookeran yesterday lamented that Culture Minister and Acting Prime Minister Joan Yuille-Williams was defending calypsonian Cro Cro.

“I heard the acting Prime Minister defending those who want to perpetuate the thinking that some people should be kidnapped,” Dookeran said as he debated the Finance Bill in the House of Representatives. He also asserted that there was a disconnect between Parliament and the society. “We come here every Friday and talk about things which are not important to the society...We are just going through the motions here...Sometimes I wonder what I am doing in this Parliament, but (I guess) we are elected by the people,” he said.

As he deplored what he described as the practice of the Government of keeping the big issues secret without involving the population and of merely making announcements every Thursday (at the post-Cabinet news conferences), Dookeran stated: “Parliament will become less and less relevant because there is no system in place to engage the society in the process.”

Dookeran also stated that it irked him to hear Government blaming the Opposition for instability in the country “when the source of the instability was public policy.” “This Opposition has been attempting to direct Government into social stability,” he said, adding that Government’s public policy was leading to instability. Dookeran said that while the Finance Bill increased the discretionary powers of Government bodies, there was no system of accountability to guard against the abuse of these increased powers.

Noting that the Minister in the Minister of Finance, Conrad Enill stated that the economy remains one of the healthiest in the region, Dookeran raised the issue of the non-energy fiscal deficit, which, he said, Government had to address. He said excess liquidity in the system had led the Central Bank to spend $380 million in 2003 to support the exchange rate. “Does it make sense to have an economy policy that requires you to give that level of support?” he asked. He called on Government to take stock and come up with a cogent policy.