Statement by Hon. Moses Nagamootoo, Prime Minister and First Vice President

Monday, December 17, 2018

Media reports state that Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo wants to defer debate on his limp No Confidence Motion until next year.

This appears bizarre as Jagdeo had been calling for the motion to be debated before the Budget. Now with the motion being imminent he is seeking to delay. It can mean only one thing – that Jagdeo knows there is absolutely no chance of success. Let it be heard and let it be defeated.

Since May 2015, the Coalition Government has been working tirelessly to get rid of all the mountain of literal and figurative garbage that we inherited from the Jagdeo-Ramotar era.

Jagdeo now seeks to lump this motion – which amounts to nothing more than a political bluff – onto the pile. Now that the real motive of this desperate act is being exposed, Jagdeo is seeking to back away but as we had called for before – BRING IT ON! We in the Coalition Government are ready and willing to defend our record.

There is no point in taking this deadweight motion into the new year.

Jagdeo is acutely aware that the motion has no prospect of success, and it is an abuse of parliamentary time and waste of  taxpayers’ money to convene a sitting of the National Assembly only to be told that he (Jagdeo) is not ready or prepared.

As the mover of the motion, he would be better advised to withdraw the motion, not to defer its rejection.

We know too that the Jagdeo-led opposition has caused the Guyanese people some distress and hurt by unconscionably attempting to exploit the illness of President David Granger to unseat me as Prime Minister. They then resisted the pro-people $300.7 Billion 2019 Budget.

Both gambits failed to derail the parliament and government. The resort to a confidence motion, is the third in a tripod of destabilisation, and it is also doomed to failure. The correct and honourable thing for Jagdeo is not to postpone his defeat but to withdraw the motion.