The APNU is demanding an urgent explanation from the Parliament office over what is it described as the “withholding” of information for Opposition Members of Parliament for a scheduled meeting with the visiting Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative Validation Team.

In a statement today, the party said it condemns the act in the strongest possible term and is demanding answers for the blanking of opposition members from the important meeting.

“This was not an ordinary meeting. EITI Validation is an international assessment of Guyana’s transparency, accountability, stakeholder engagement, and governance of its oil, gas, mining and other extractive sectors. In a country now defined by vast petroleum wealth, every Guyanese has a right to know whether national institutions are allowing independent voices to be heard,”the party said today.

APNU said from information it has gathered, a correspondence addressed to the Clerk of the National Assembly requested that all Members of Parliament be invited to meet with the EITI Validation Team.
However, only Government Members of Parliament were told of the meeting.

Some opposition members only became aware of the meeting moments before it got underway.

“That occurrence is deeply troubling. It strikes at the heart of parliamentary fairness, democratic accountability, and Guyana’s international obligations under the EITI process. APNU, therefore, demands an immediate, written, independent explanation from the Parliament Office. That explanation must state when the correspondence was received, who received it, how it was processed, who was responsible for notifying Members of Parliament, why Opposition MPs were not notified in a timely manner, and why Government MPs appear to have been properly facilitated,” APNU stated.

The party said the public must not be asked to accept the convenient explanation of “administrative error” without documentary proof.

The party said the incident cannot be separated from the wider pattern under the PPP/C administration with issues related to weakened parliamentary scrutiny, restricted opposition participation, rejected questions, stalled oversight, and repeated attempts to manage or mute independent voices on matters of national importance.

The party also called on the EITI Validation Team to record the incident as material evidence of the environment in which stakeholder engagement and parliamentary oversight now operate in Guyana.

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