‘Use of question time as pretext for debate not permitted’

 

SOME Members of Parliament use question time in Parliament as pretexts for debate.

The issue was pointed out by the Prime Minister Hon Manasseh Sogavare in his Sine Die speech provided to the paper by his Office.

There were up to a hundred questions that were set down for the recent meeting that now stands adjourned Sine Die, according to the Prime Minister.

“Mr Speaker, a good number of questions were put to the Government by the other side of the House and it is interesting that we need to look more into the Standing Orders because they ended up as debates.

“We are actually not allowed to use questions as pretext for debate but if you look at it, the small debates that we enter into during question time was very interesting to listen to,” Prime Minister Sogavare said.

He then added that it made a lot of sense and put a lot of meaning to what the Members asking questions wanted to put across.

“I thank you Speaker for not raising Point of Order because if you go strictly by the rules, you will rule out a lot of those that used the question time to debate.

“They speak for five minutes first before asking a question.

“There are some who almost made speeches when trying to ask to ask a simple question.

“We are revolving, evolving and progressing so maybe let us look at that.

“I don’t know where the idea of using question time for debate came from,” the Prime Minister added.

Sogavare then said, nevertheless, the Government appreciates the questions raised during the recent meeting of Parliament, the fifth meeting.

“Some of the questions have been pending for a while and now there are up to a hundred questions that have been set down here on the Business Paper and I think we have dealt with a good number of them and that only a few are still pending,” Sogavare said.

The Prime Minister then told Parliament that they have talked about asking the House to set aside a whole day for questions and answers by suspending the Standing Orders to allow for this in the interest of making the Government more accountable to the people of this country.