From the outset of his first Budget Debate as Opposition Leader Friday night, Azruddin Mohamed was repeatedly cautioned for reading extensively from prepared notes, and it’s an issue that would come to define his hour-long presentation in the National Assembly.
Mohamed, the penultimate speaker in the $1.558 trillion Budget 2026 debate, was intermittently reminded by veteran Parliamentarian Gail Teixeira of Standing Order 38(6), which bars members from reading speeches instead of debating.
As Mohamed persisted in reading from his text, Speaker Manzoor Nadir issued repeated warnings from the Chair.
“That’s a big violation of the Standing Order,” Nadir said, reminding the newly appointed Opposition Leader of the rules governing debate in the National Assembly.
Despite the cautions, Mohamed continued to rely heavily on his prepared remarks until the conclusion of his presentation.
In between cautions, the Opposition Leader outlined proposals he said could help ease rising food prices, including the establishment of food banks and nationwide kitchen and community gardens. These, he argued, should have been incorporated into the government’s budget.
His We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party, Mohamed said, would pursue temporary cost-of-living measures to cushion households while large-scale government projects come on stream. The proposed food banks, he explained, would distribute basic staples such as rice, flour and sugar, while community gardens would allow citizens to grow their own food.
“This and more could have been included in the budget,” Mohamed told the House.
However, much of his presentation drifted into familiar political rhetoric, including renewed accusations that the People’s Progressive Party has been targeting him politically since he was sanctioned. These claims have been repeatedly rejected in the past.
A federal grand jury in Miami returned an indictment on Oct. 2 charging Azruddin Mohamed and his father with participating in a multi-year scheme to evade millions of dollars in taxes and royalties owed to the Government of Guyana through fraudulent gold export practices and related money laundering activities. Other indictments followed, and Mohamed and his father, Nazar, are facing extradition.
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