The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) walked out of the Low­er House last night, ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of turn­ing the de­bate in­to a “de­lib­er­ate abuse” of par­lia­men­tary pro­ce­dure.

In a me­dia re­lease is­sued mo­ments lat­er at 9 pm, the Op­po­si­tion said it “con­demns in the strongest pos­si­ble terms the con­duct of the Gov­ern­ment,” which, it ar­gued, left it with “no op­tion oth­er than to take the se­ri­ous and prin­ci­pled de­ci­sion to walk out.”

The Low­er House was de­bat­ing the rec­om­men­da­tions of the Spe­cial Re­port of the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC). This re­port deals with the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing Janelle John-Bates and ac­cu­sa­tions that she in­ten­tion­al­ly at­tempt­ed to tam­per with a par­lia­men­tary in­quiry.