21 October 2017

Third day of the debate of the VII Government Program

WARNING MACHINE TRANSLATION from the web site of the East Timor National Parliament in Portuguese.

The Debate of Consideration of the Program of the 7th Constitutional Government by the National Parliament of Timor-Leste continued this Wednesday, October 18, 2017.

On this third day, the format of the debate was maintained, with various interventions and questions asked by the honourable Members, and with the answers and explanations provided by the Prime Minister and members of the Government.

In the morning there was a first session of five speeches by Members, followed by the replies and clarifications of Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.

During the period of government responses, the Minister of State and Minister of Mineral Resources, Mariano Assanami Sabino, the Prime Minister, Mari Alkatiri, and the Minister of Planning and Finance, Rui Gomes, spoke.

There followed a second session of Members' speeches, marked by many requests for a Point of Order, a mechanism for Parliament's normal functioning, where Members could ask for clarification or give some information, usually on procedural matters rather than on the substance of the subject under discussion. This sequence of almost twenty requests for a Point of Order led the President to appeal to Members to try to focus their interventions on the content of the Government Program.
The Prime Minister closed the morning debate stating that the Government had sent the Government Program to leaders of all parties with parliamentary seats to broaden the discussion to all and show openness and dialogue.

In the afternoon, the session took place in the same way, with a first sequence of eight interventions by Members and replies by the executive, followed by an interval and then three more interventions by Members and their replies from the Prime Minister.

Throughout the day questions were again raised regarding the various areas of government as well as the importance of the past and the efforts of the liberation struggle of the motherland.

At the end of his speech, the Prime Minister appealed once again to the various parties to focus their interventions on the content of the Program, since issues of a different nature, such as the constitutionality or unconstitutionality of the VII be examined by the competent institutions, such as the Court of Appeal, and not by the National Parliament.

The Evaluation of the Program of the 7th Constitutional Government by the National Parliament of Timor-Leste continues this Thursday, October 19, 2017.

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