Opposition hits out at gagging of K3b UBS loan debate

 By MALUM NALU

Opposition leader Belden Namah is disappointed that Speaker Theo Zurenuoc stopped debate on the K3 billion UBS loan last Friday.

He is surprised that Finance Minister and Leader of Government Business James Marape told Parliament that Prime Minister Peter O’Neill had “absolute power”.

The speaker told Namah the matter was before the Ombudsman Commission.

Rabaul MP Dr Allan Marat said the trend set by Marape and Defence Minister Fabian Pok was “dangerous”.

“I wanted to debate the UBS loan,” Namah told reporters.

“Speaker intervenes and says the Ombudsman Commission has stopped it (debate).

“Ombudsman Commission cannot stop Members of Parliament from debating matters of national interest.

“It may stop the Prime Minister from bringing in a Bill to legalise his illegal actions but it cannot stop the Opposition from raising those issues.”

Namah said Marape’s statement was sending out worrying messages,

“What we are saying here, and confirmed by his own ministers, is that they think the Prime Minister has absolute power,” he said.

“We are saying ‘no’.

“No prime minister, no opposition leader, no minister, no member of parliament has the absolute power to violate the laws of this country and the due processes of this country.

“The Constitution and the laws that we have, are based on common laws of the Commonwealth … unless they have created some other laws that we don’t know.

“The behaviour of ministers and the prime minister is only telling us that ‘let’s throw out the Constitution, let’s throw out the Organic Law, let’s throw out the due processes of this land’.

“It worries me the way Peter O’Neill is conducting himself and the way he is going.”