Speaker of the House Raphael Trotman addresses the media at the post-seminar media briefing Tuesday.

Tripartite talks between the governing PPP/C and the opposition AFC and APNU are set to resume on Wednesday, the first meeting between the parties since budget cuts almost a month ago.

This was revealed at a news briefing on Tuesday following a two-day seminar for parliamentarians which was held under the theme “Managing through Partnerships.”   

“I’m aware that Ms. (Gail) Teixeira has written a letter to the parties signaling that fact. The AFC is in the process of responding and I daresay that the APNU is as well. So I have no doubt tripartite talks will resume in the not too distant future once members are back in Guyana,” Speaker of the House Raphael Trotman said.

The AFC’s Moses Nagamootoo then announced that the sub-committee set up by the parties to address constitutional matters will be meeting on Wednesday. Political acrimony boiled over in the wake of the opposition’s $20.9B cut in the originally proposed $192.8 budget last month with talks between the two sides grinding to a halt.

The two-day seminar conducted by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in collaboration with the UNDP, UNICEF and the British High Commission appeared to have had some mollifying effect on the politicos.

The APNU’s Dr. George Norton said they have always been opened to dialogue and prepared to proceed in “good faith” while Nagamootoo said he believed that there is a will to move away from the recent political rancour.

“The new front has to be the tripartite arrangement where we can hammer out some of the issues that may go before the parliament and cause division. We are not going to abandon our positions and principles on issues that come before the parliament but what we certainly would abandon is the narrow partisan considerations.”

Meanwhile Governance Advisor Teixeira was more measured in her comments pointing out that it is a process which will not be completed overnight and there will be need to abandon the old way of doing things.

“This is a new stage that we’re entering into and I think that we will have the capacity once we are willing to experiment and to see what will work for us.”

One of the discussion groups at the seminar.

Even Trotman appeared enthused saying there was now a better atmosphere for dialogue.

“Some fantastic ideas came on how we can bring about partnerships, you’ve heard one idea of a walk, certainly most groups in discussions reported that we should tone down the rhetoric indeed, you’ve heard Moses Nagamootoo speaking about a truce, he’s declared a truce on behalf of the AFC certainly this afternoon so there are some outcomes and even as we are meeting and speaking now things are still mushrooming.

The speaker added that the seminar was to be held in June but was fast tracked because of the post-budget cuts tension.