Edmond Campbell, Senior Staff Reporter

Dr D.K. Duncan, chairman of the Constituency Development Fund Committee (CDF) of Parliament, and controversial legislator Everald Warmington are rejecting assertions that members of parliament (MP) are immersed in pork barrel politics.

"Members of Parliament are sufficiently degraded by the public and sections of the media for the impression to be left that all we are about is attempting to be pigs in a trough and helping out each other," Duncan declared at the start of yesterday's meeting to examine CDF projects.

Duncan said he resented the designation by sections of the media, noting that as an MP from the 1970s, he has "seen the majority, if not all members of parliament, being dedicated to their constituents and work very hard. We are one of the most misunderstood groups in the country in relation to the difficulties we have to face with the general public".

In his comments, Warmington claimed that members of the public have now accepted the CDF and the assistance it provides to them.

"It's only sections of the media that talk about trough and pork barrel and that nonsense because they have nothing to do, they don't represent anybody and they don't know what it takes to represent the people out there and that is why they come with this rubbish," Warmington fired back.

"Personally, when I see such arguments about pork and trough, I don't even dignify them to mention it at all. I do not descend to that level to recognise such impertinence and rudeness," he charged.

However, André Hylton, MP for East St Andrew, commended the media for the job they have done in covering the sittings of the committee.

"We must commend the media in the last year, I think they have been very helpful in communicating to the wider public the function of the CDF and how meaningful the CDF is to the country.

"That article, I didn't find it in anyway offensive," Hylton said.

edmond.campbell@gleanerjm.com