House of Assembly to meet March 13, 2014
It will be the Fifth Sitting of the Third Session of the Second House of Assembly, according to the Order Paper obtained by this news site.
There will be no questions from the Virgin Islands Party (VIP) led Opposition for the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) Government to answer after the Opposition boycotted the Budget Debate last month.
The Opposition cited the bullying and disrespectful tactics used by the Dr. Smith Administration against its members. The culture of disrespect for members of the Opposition, lack of regard for laws of the Territory, protocols and traditions of Parliament and respect for the people, the reckless spending of taxpayers’ money, along with the rhetoric of misinformation have become one of the signatures of the NDP regime over the last two years.
According to the Order Paper many Departments’ annual report will be laid on the table of the House of Assembly (HOA) to include the Deputy Governor’s Office, Social Development and the Human Resources Departments and the financial statements of the H. Lavity Stoutt Community College from 2004-2009.
Bill to muzzle the press gets second & third readings
Many Bills before the HOA will get their first, second and third readings. They include the Human Rights Commission Bill 2014, the Criminal Code (Amendment) Bill 2013 and the Interpretation (Amendment) Bill 2013.
However, the Bill that both the local and international community will be watching is the controversial Computer Misuse and Cybercrime Act 2013, a Bill designed to crackdown on press freedom and turn the Virgin Islands into a dictatorship.
The NDP Bill targets mostly the online news sites and will impose heavy fines and prison terms for information obtained thought leaks to the online media via computer data.
The Bill has been condemned by the Opposition, the local and international media along with many media and democratic organizations in the Caribbean and Europe. Many regional and International Organizations have called our newsroom to get information about the Bill and to ask us how they can help in protecting press freedom in the Virgin Islands.
In response to the mounting criticism over this undemocratic piece of legislation the NDP Government has claimed it is just an effort to protect the Financial Services Sector, however the Bill has no bearing on international media houses as they will be out of the reach of the local government laws.
Therefore, the only persons that will be affected by this backwards Bill are the local media houses which have been the target of the NDP from time they took office.
It was some six months after they took office that the controversial Minister for Education and Culture Honourable Myron V. Walwyn called for media censorship and he has been consistent in the HOA with that call.
Hon. Walwyn, a first-term At-Large Representative, has emerged as one of the most divisive politicians in recent VI history and has on two occasions used his HOA privilege not to fight for the people of the Territory or for education and youths, but to attack the staff of an online news site.
The rookie Minister also told the HOA that persons using their democratic rights via comments/blogs on online news stories made him “vex.”
One local talk show host Edmund Maduro on his EGM radio show aired Thursdays from 8:00 P.M. on ZROD 103.7 FM vowed to rather go to Balsam Ghut jail than to be muzzled. He said the Bill is only an attempt to hide government corruption and intimidate the press from reporting on this.
The HOA meeting will be carried live on CBN Channel 51 on March 13, 2014 from 10:00 A.M.
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23 Responses to “House of Assembly to meet March 13, 2014”
What a ting to tell the king!!!!
Let them proceed. If the bill goes ahead, I have no doubt it will be rewritten or abolished altogether within a very short period of time. The voters will have their say soon enough. 2015 is just around the corner.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Government in the sunshine indeed! Does anyone wonder why they dropped that slogan in their last campaign?
From your previous posts I consider you an intelligent person.
This bill is about stopping leaks of confidential information. How is that considered media censorship in the general sense? Also, the VIP had no part of the hospital mess?