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PM Says Et Tu Johnny?
posted (March 5, 2020)

And out went on like that for a while, with no less than 7 members of the opposition weighing in forcefully on the Government Contract Validation Bill. 

The Prime Minister gave a 25 minute response - and here are some clips:

Rt. Hon. Dean Barrow - Prime Minister
"Your side never ever laid any contract before the national assembly? Madam Speaker I'm not saying that in fact that excuses any omission on our part but what it does is to expose the hypocrisy. You come here and you bewail and you bemoan the fact that there was an omission without ever conceding that it was an omission of which you are guilty, if that's the word you want to use, of which you are guilty from time in memorial. So, please, I accept that there was an omission and that is what we're trying to cure but you must also accept that, you were guilty of the same omission; you like to use the word serially. Serially, throughout the entirety of your administrations from 1989 onwards until you left office in 2008. So please man, let us get it right, bad precedence does not make good law but do not play the whited sepal carol, do not act as though you are completely innocent and that the government has committed this absolutely fundamental violation of the law, which if it has, you are so much more guilty of. To absolutely turn in the kind of performance that the member for Cayo South did, to keep violating the standing orders, to talk about criminal behaviour on my part, to talk the Chief Justice having found me guilty. Guilty of what!? What was before the court, was a civil matter, you can't be found guilty. So really Madam Speaker, I understand why somebody said with respect to these memes that if desperate were a person, it would be the Leader of the Opposition. My goodness man, there is an election coming no later than November, hold your horses."

Despite opposition objection, the bill was passed through all three stages today.  

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