Failure to meet quorum disrupts first Parliament sitting after long break

Today’s Parliament sitting, which was the first after a long interruption and a break of one month, had to be disrupted twice due to failure to meet quorum.

First, efforts to recommence the sitting at 11:00 after a thirty minute break were unsuccessful due to failure to meet quorum.

Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Dhiggaru MP Ahmed Nazim who chaired today’s sitting, said that most MPs left the chamber to continue with the work of the Committees, but some others failed to return after the break.

Nazim allowed them five minutes to return; however, receiving no positive response, announced that the sitting will resume at 11:45.

Parliament sittings must have a quorum of 25 percent, which is 20 out of 77 MPs.

The problem of quorum got out of hand at this year’s two previous sessions of as well, resulting in a case being sent to Parliament’s General Purpose Committee requesting to lower the quorum required to hold Parliament sittings.

The Parliament was halted on 31 July. Since then, MPs have taken vacation of one month as stipulated in the Parliament rules of procedure. They also took vacation in June; and as the first annual session of the Parliament commences on 1 March, the months of January and February were also vacation for MPs.

In spite of MPs having been on long vacations and the Parliament being unproductive all year, Parliament expenditure for the past eight months was at MVR113.3 million.

Each of the 77 MPs receive a monthly salary of MVR62,500, which is a monthly cost of MVR4.8 million. In addition, MPs also receive MVR20,000 as Committee allowance.