Blame the rain

No quorum, parliament adjourned, bad weather accused for low turnout

By Gary Hatigeva

PARLIAMENT was unable to resume with its official duties yesterday due to a low turnout in the number of members.

Thus it could not form a quorum for its session to establish the second reading of the Constitution (Amendment) (Dual Citizenship) Bill 2017 and other businesses of the House.

Only 23 members of Parliament (MP) managed to make it, though not all on time.

But, 23 MPs according to Aoke/Langalanga MP Matthew Wale, who had called for a point of order, was not enough to fulfil the constitutional requirements for a quorum.

Parliament was however given 15 minutes to wait for the remaining MPs to attend, but officials say could not happen due to the bad weather that hit Honiara yesterday morning causing floods and blocking road accesses.

As set out in the Order Paper for yesterday’s businesses, Members were expected to take part in an asking and answering of question session, and deliberate on the second reading of the ‘Constitution (Amendment) (Dual Citizenship) Bill 2017’.

Initially, as stated in the Order Paper, Parliament was expected to cover all its highlighted matters for the day (Thursday, March 1, 2018) and have the meeting adjourned to Monday, March 5, 2018, but the situations had again forced the House to make another adjournment to today.

Parliament could not make up the number after the 5 minuted requirement was given to form quorum for the meeting to proceed, the Speaker, under Section 67 of the Constitution and Section 12 (2) and (3) of the Parliamentary Standing Orders, adjourned the House to this morning.

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