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Mem­bers of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) have ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of avoid­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty in the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed bud­get de­bate by hav­ing low­er-rank­ing MPs an­swer ques­tions in­stead of Cab­i­net min­is­ters.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at Bal­isi­er House yes­ter­day, PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les took is­sue with what he de­scribed as the Gov­ern­ment’s at­tempts to “run away” from the de­bate.

He said the is­sues be­gan ear­ly yes­ter­day morn­ing dur­ing the Low­er House de­bate, not­ing that the on­ly se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials present were Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries Sad­dam Ho­sein and Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Dr Michael Dowlath. He added that most of the Gov­ern­ment’s par­tic­i­pants were “back­benchers” who lacked the ex­pe­ri­ence to ad­e­quate­ly re­spond to ques­tions from the Op­po­si­tion.