News

New parliamentary sitting calendar adopted

July 14, 2017 8:11 pm

The parliament had adopted the parliamentary sitting calendar for the period of September 2017 to July 2018.

The dates were endorsed by the Business Committee on Monday.

The dates were opposed by Opposition MP Viliame Gavoka, who proposed that a sitting be held in December so that the parliament can be updated on Prime Minster Voreqe Bainimarama’s COP23 Presidency.

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“We will be going on a break from October, November, December and January – for four months – I understand the Prime Minister will chairing COP23 in November – surely the whole country will want his report when he comes back – people will want to know about the COP23 and he should present that in parliament – so why don’t we sit in December.”

Attorney General, Aiyaz Sayed-Khaiyum responded by explaining that the Prime Minister is the incoming president of COP23 and his presidency actually begins from November.

“He has until the next COP presidency which is November the following year. So in October for example this year we have the pre COP meeting, November we have in Bonn, Germany – that’ll be two or three weeks, in December the Prime Minister is off again to a major gathering hosted by the French government, we have various other commitments and we have very clearly stated this to the business community meeting – of course the parliament will be informed about the on-goings of the presidency.”

The new parliament sitting will be officially opened on September 4th.

The other sitting begin from 11th September, 19th February, 19th March, 16th April, 14th May and 9th July. These are week-long sittings.

The budget address date will be announced during the new session.