Letter Of The Day | PNP Not Entitled To Anything

By: Admin

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THE EDITOR, Madam:

Recently, the Government moved to take control of some committees of Parliament that were previously chaired by the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP), and it has caused all sorts of disquiet.

But, what is really wrong with what the Government has done? It’s not illegal. It’s not a power grab. It’s not unconstitutional. Let’s be clear about one thing: the existing arrangement was not working.

From statistics given, the PNP spent all its time basically in the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC) and Public Accounts Committee (PAC). They still have those.

The PNP used their chairmanship of those committees to waste time and push their own agendas. A case in point – they spent months on Petrojam and Caribbean Maritime University (CMU) but not one day on the $400-million Manchester Municipal Corporation thievery.

While the PNP was turning those two committees into a circus, they never bothered to even turn up for the other committees. Then, if there wasn’t a CMU and a Petrojam, for four and a half years the PNP wouldn’t bother to go to committee meetings!

Is that what we really want from an Opposition? Is that the level of oversight that this country put them there to administer? Certainly not. To paraphrase a Bible quote: If you are not faithful in the little things, even the little that you have will be taken away. The PNP should go read the scripture passage about the man that got one mina and buried it in the ground and see what happened to him. It’s exactly the same thing that has befallen them.

SERIOUS OPPOSITION NEEDED

We need an Opposition that takes the people’s business seriously. All of it. They, by their own track record of the past parliamentary term, have shown that they are incapable of doing that. So why should they be rewarded for doing nothing? The Jamaican people didn’t reward them at the polls for doing nothing over the previous 4.5 years, so why should the Government?

Election has consequences. Under the Andrew Holness administration, it’s quite clear that he intends to do a lot of work, and that includes in the Parliament.

No time to linger. So get rid of the PNP chairpersons and put those committees under people who are willing to work. Transparency and oversight is not the exclusive domain of the Opposition; it’s the domain of the Government also.

T.F. LEWIS