Time come! - PM defends plan to build new Parliament building

Prime Minister Andrew Holness last Thursday officially launched the 'Houses of Parliament Design Competition'. In a wide-ranging presentation, Holness defending the decision to construct the building and chided his parliamentary colleagues for their behaviour in the House.

This is an edited version of the prime minister's presentation.

This is indeed a historic moment for downtown Kingston and Jamaica. Indeed, it is transformational. Discussions about a new Parliament building have been on the table for more than 50 years but this is the farthest we have pushed the needle in 50 years.

Let me give you a better context and perspective. Jamaica has not had a purpose-built designed Parliament building in 52 years of its political independence.

You may not know this, but at the time of independence in 1962, the country's legislators moved out of the Headquarters House, which was then our Parliament, our legislative assembly building, call it that, that was located on Duke Street into the newly constructed Gordon House, which was built right beside it.

But Gordon House was designed and built for meetings of the municipal council, the KSAMC, so actually Jamaica's Parliament is resident in the parish council building. So the KSAMC was never able to occupy their purpose-built building.

Yes, our sovereign building where we pass legislation was really built for a parish council building. That could explain a lot of things.

The building itself (Gordon House) lacks the stature and functionality of a modern Parliament.

Fulfilling Norman Manley's vision

I want to pause here a bit because there is a sense in the country that we mustn't spend anything on government. There is a sense that if you are going to invest in making the symbols of government reflective of the hopes, dreams, ambitions, aspirations of the people, that you are wasting money because there is this great distrust of the State, and indeed a separation of the State from the people.

Investing in a Parliament [building] is not wasting the people's money. It is because we have not, as a country, made the investments in the symbols of our sovereignty why we have the fundamental issues with respect for the rule of law and fairness and dignity of the State, and until we break that and show that the Jamaican State is not a kleptocracy, enriching itself for a certain class or sector of the society, but is making an investment for everyone to be able to access and benefit from it, then we will continue as we are.

I, as your prime minister, don't want to leave Jamaica the way I found it. And I know that none of you in this audience want to leave Jamaica the way you found it.

While I was minister of education, a large file was brought to me. I was flipping [through the files which] went back to somewhere in the 1950s. Norman Manley was then the premier and I saw some documents in that file which literally had a plan.

The idea was that the Parliament would be here, at Race Course, now Heroes Park, not my idea, this was what Norman Manley had in mind. He had some ideas as well for King's House lands. Not going into that right now.

So you can understand that having read this and seen that there was someone else who had a vision. But what happened after 50 years, we are still having a dream, we have to wake up now and get something done.

We are going to build this Parliament and we are going to do it the right way. We are going to take all concerns on board, all suggestions, it is going to be bipartisan, multi-sectoral and it will be done in the best interest of all the people of Jamaica.

In November 2003, the Oliver Clarke-chaired parliamentary salaries committee presented its report which recommended higher salaries, but among other things that a new parliamentary building be constructed to allow for parliamentarians to perform their work efficiently.

The committee was of the view that the legislature cannot continue to carry out its work within the limited and inadequate space of the existing Parliament building. That was almost 15 years ago. We cannot delay any longer, we have a real opportunity to make Jamaica what it should be, and so we need to work together today to create the Jamaica we all want to see for the future.

Transforming the wider downtown Kingston

Just imagine in a few years this space, and the wider downtown area, will be transformed into a vibrant, enviable iconic destination - the centre of the Caribbean.

Because this is how we must see ourselves, Jamaica as the centre of the Caribbean, the centre for business, the centre for culture and lifestyle, which we easily could be, the centre of innovation and creativity, on par and exceeding anywhere else in the world. Yes, we can be the superpower island of the world.

The Houses of Parliament will be the anchor stone for all of that, the key stone for all of that development. It will hold a central position in Kingston the capital, right here. We will have 14 government ministries and core agencies conveniently and efficiently located within the 300 acres of surrounding land.

This is about 52 acres of land but the development plan outside of the Parliament calls for the redevelopment of 300 acres surrounding this property, we will have our ministries, agencies all centrally located. Can you imagine the efficiency of that, when we purposely plan and build for an efficient government, you know you don't have to go downtown then Constant Spring somewhere else and the traffic ... efficiency of government but at the same time we are going to build them in an iconic fashion.

No leaving out the people

Some of the discussions I am hearing, I'm wondering if we are not listening to each other, so I'm taking the opportunity today to speak clearly as to what the vision is. Because I am certain we all share the same vision.

Of course, all of this has to be paid for, and it's one thing we have said as part of securing our economic independence, that we are not going back to a situation of debt so it means we have to incorporate the private sector in everything that we are doing.

A part of the development here will have commercial value, there will be significant commercial value, approximately 1.2 million square feet of commercial space. There are some who feel that we are trying to throw out the people who live here. Block and steel don't make a city, people make a city.

The people give you that vibration, that energy, that culture, they create the lifestyle, the warmth, the reception, but if the block and steel isn't built in a particular way, it could also create a culture of crime and violence where people don't relate well with their built environment or use their built environment to perpetrate crimes.

So we are taking into consideration the people and the built environment, so there will be 5,000 homes when this project is done around this area, and not homes exclusive for the rich. There will be homes of all grades and classes and in combines because all kinds of people make the city vibrant, inclusive of multicultural, all-embracing. So nobody has to fear.

Crass behaviour cannot enter new Parliament

So as we talk about a transformation, a new culture, a new building, let me sound a warning, well warning is too strong a word, let me make an alert, that we cannot carry the Gordon House behaviour to the new Parliament.

Because I know that it is a matter of concern for the public. You know, during the 2016 election campaign, and even before that, whenever I would go out in the field, you know there would be people who raise the issue of the behaviour of parliamentarians.

I don't think we do ourselves any justice by what we say and what we do in Parliament. We want to dismiss it sometimes by saying, "Oh, you know it's the Lower House, it's the House of Commons, we battle it out there, it's not Sunday school or Sabbath school, it's where there is robust and vigorous debates."

But you know you can be vigorous and robust and still maintain decorum and still maintain the dignity of the House. There is without doubt a deterioration in parliamentary craft, and I believe all parliamentarians, who sit in their own right, there is no principal to guide them.

All parliamentarians need to reflect on this and improve their parliamentary craft; the lowest cannot be the denominator of Parliament.

Involving the diaspora

So another feature of this is that we are having a competition obviously to select the Parliament, we have asked Mr Gordon Gill to be our patron.

I thought it important to invite someone from the diaspora because in building our Parliament we would want to have our diaspora participate in some way. Because the Parliament is for Jamaicans and it's not just Jamaicans living here.

When we think about Jamaica now, we have to think about Jamaicans living everywhere. We have to find a way to finance it, and I believe this is a way we could incorporate the diaspora.

This is a way in which we could bring them in to become part of the creation of the sovereign building. You know, when the United Kingdom rebuilt their Parliament which was burnt in a fire somewhere in 1840 or thereabouts, countries from all over the Commonwealth, then colonies, contributed to its rebuilding.

Jamaica made its own contribution as well, and so I think that a part of the rebuilding is that we will have to ask our diaspora to come together and make their small contribution, and I'm not saying that it has to be cash, but something to say that this was contributed from the diaspora of the UK, the diaspora of Canada, because we really want it to be an effort for all Jamaicans to feel that they have some ownership in the Parliament.

The parliament must project the sovereignty of the people of Jamaica, our freedom, but freedom is not the same thing as independence. So it must also project our independence, it must project that we are a people of high ideals, of strong principles of democracy and fairness and truth and kindness and love.

All of those things will have to be reflected in our Parliament building, but it must also reflect our history. We are people uprooted from all over the world brought here in struggle. We continue in struggle but the struggle must be the good fight for our economic, social and political independence for Jamaica to truly self-actualise and be the great people that we were destined to be.