House Speaker stays

Speaker of the House, Halson Moultrie, admitted in Parliament yesterday that he was wrong for comments made against members of the Official Opposition.

Moultrie made the apologetic remarks after House members participated in a ‘no confidence’ vote against the Speaker, which did not pass. The four opposition members voted in favour of the resolution while 24 members of the governing party voted against it. The one absent member was registered as abstaining their vote.

In response, the Speaker admitted that he allowed himself to get into the flesh and said things that he should not have said. Last week the Speaker verbally attacked retired senior clerk, Maurice Tynes, and suggested that that Senator Fred Mitchell was a powder puff man. He also made references to Davis’ foreign wife.

Moultrie said, in hindsight, those comments were hurtful and that is not who he wanted to be.

The speaker initially suspended and named Englerston MP, Glenys Hanna Martin, and later suspended the remaining opposition members. Moultrie noted that more must be done to encourage women to enter frontline politics and he agitated for a political environment that is void of mud slinging.

Moultrie has also charged the chair of the rules committee to decide on a single policy that will govern the rules of the House. During the suspension of the members, the Speaker revealed that there were three orders in circulation that house members were being guided by.

 

About Genea Noel

Genea Noel is the news director and weeknight TV news anchor at Eyewitness News. She began working at Eyewitness News in 2018 as the newsroom editor and was subsequently promoted during her tenure. As a household name who graces the screens of thousands of Bahamian homes each night, Genea has racked up an impressive five Bahamas Press Club awards, including “The Cyril Stevenson Award for Outstanding Political Journalism” (2020), “Best Studio Live Producer” (2020) and “Best Newscast” (2018).