National Assembly to Address “Weaknesses” in Security

Laura Longsworth

With that meeting pending, we asked Longsworth if there is anything within her powers, as Speaker of the House and chair of the National Assembly Staff Committee, to prohibit Audinette from attending or disrupting subsequent senate hearings.

Isani Cayetano

“Now I know that the chairman of the Senate Special Select Committee presides over conduct within the particular hearing.  But as the overall person in charge at this point, is there anything that can be done from your end to prevent this individual from returning to that sitting or interfering with that process?”

Laura Longsworth, Speaker of the House

“Yes of course, we have, in terms of law and order in the House, I must say that we addressed this two Fridays ago, just before I left the country.  I called for a meeting and the commissioner provided me with a team of officers and it was an important meeting because there are some weaknesses in the security system of the National Assembly.  Not that people don’t know what we have to do, but they need to be better articulated and I had indicated to the clerk, he and I had that discussion and we were just waiting for a break to really attack it fully.  We want to, the plan is to, during the meeting the clerk and I discussed with the officers who were there, high-level police officers who were there, about security for the entire building.  The acquisition of scanners, proper scanners and stronger policies to really, so that people can understand what their roles are, the police need to know what their roles are, they can’t be afraid of action when there is trouble in the House.”

The senate hearing on the Auditor General’s Special Report on the Immigration and Nationality Department is scheduled to resume on Wednesday.