THE COMMISSIONER of Lands or the Minister of Local Government should act now and take control of what we understand to be Government property in the constituency of St. Ann North Western.The background to the issue, as we understand it, is that Mr. Arnold Bertram, the former Minister of Local Government and former Member of Parliament for the constituency, used state funds to build and occupy an office on lands owned by the National Works Agency on Main Street, Brown's Town.
When the matter was raised during the campaign for the October 16 general election, Mr. Bertram was reported to have said that the office was erected for the Member of Parliament, not as a political office.
Since the defeat of Mr. Bertram, the new Member of Parliament, Mrs. Verna Parchment, has sought with some justification to move into the office but she has been barred from it.
But, and here is the rub, we are not aware of any existing provision for the state to erect offices for Members of Parliament. It might have formed part of the Local Government reforms espoused by Mr. Bertram but to the best of our knowledge no legislation was introduced in Parliament to give the authority of law to this proposal.
Mr. Bertram therefore had no right to hijack lands owned by the Government and certainly no authority to appropriate state funds to erect an office for the Member of Parliament in St. Ann North Western.
Mr. Bertram should be required to pay a commercial rental for the period that he occupied the office and the Commissioner of Lands should take control of the building until the Government decides how it is to be used. In addition, in the spirit of no tolerance for corruption enunciated by the Prime Minister the Contractor-General might wish to examine the contract for the construction to ensure that taxpayers' money was well spent.
