Editorial | Parliamentary committee’s lazy report

The parliamentary committee that was asked to review the Government’s job description proposals for members of parliament (MPs) squandered an opportunity to do something really significant.

They rubber-stamped the recommendations and when they reported on their work last week, the most their colleagues in the House could do was squabble over the value of attending sittings of the legislature.

This newspaper, of course, believes that attending Parliament is important and agrees that this ought to be among the job requirements of legislators, if they are to pass laws, represent their constituencies and hold the executive to account.

However, a major shortcoming of the committee’s work was its failure to undertake a deeper analysis, or debate more broadly the issues that ail Jamaica’s democracy and what expressly those elected to serve as MPs should do to lift the malaise and citizens’ confidence in the institutions of government and governance. Insofar as these issues were addressed, it was merely in regurgitations, without more, of ideas and concerns raised by individuals and organisations who made submissions to the committee.

In the end, the committee told the House: “Given the generality of the job descriptions of parliamentarians in those jurisdictions that do utilise them, your committee considers that the job description proposed in Green Paper No 3/2023 outlines sufficient comprehensive standards for Jamaica’s MPs at this time.”

Among the “key responsibilities” of MPs, as outlined in the endorsed document, is to “provide appropriate assistance to individual constituents through projects financed by the CDF (Constituency Development Fund).” Which is not surprising!

The CDF is the annual Budget allocation of $20 million, often supplemented by other special grants under various names, which the representatives can have spent in their constituencies, and speak about though it was their personal resources rather than taxpayers’ money.

COMPLAINS

As The Gleaner often complains, the CDF reinforces the political system of patronage and weakens the imperative for strengthening institutions of the State to deliver services efficiently and fairly. We are however grateful that the job descriptions embraced the need for “accountability for how the funds are utilised”.

The questions of job description for MPs has been on Jamaica’s agenda for decades, eliciting recommendations from various groups and committees, without either the government’s or Parliament’s acceptance or implementation.

Prime Minister Andrew Holness promised to deal with the matter shortly after his Jamaica Labour Party won in 2016, but it again fell into limbo until it was revived with new urgency in 2023 in the face of a public backlash against a 200 per cent salary increase to MPs and ministers.

Most of the things in the job description that Parliament has now given its nod are generic stuff, like participation in parliamentary debates. But the committee’s report does not reflect a robust engagement of these matters, or what they feel can, or must be done, to transform the backbenches of the House into a serious and effective deliberative part of the legislature, rather than robotic, desk-thumping cheerleaders. In other words, the committee did not expand on Ministry Paper 3 of 2023.

In so doing, they missed an opportunity to seriously engage the questions raised by Peter Phillips, the former Opposition leader, and Prime Minister Holness, in the immediate aftermath of the 2020 general election, and to which Dr Phillips recently returned in what was likely to be his last significant intervention in a debate: the deepening disengagement of citizens from politics and its implications for democracy and national development.

In 2020, only 37.2 per cent of the 1.9 million registered voters cast ballots, the lowest since adult suffrage.

NO VALUE

Worried that over 60 per cent of Jamaicans appeared to consider their right to elect a government to be “of no value to them”, Dr Phillips fretted that this state of affairs could undermine “the foundations of our democracy”. He urged the major political parties, separately and collectively, as well as the government, to undertake a mission of reviving “the sense of civic responsibility and civic duty”. Prime Minister Holness agreed, saying at the time that among the things that might be done was setting “Parliament to work on examining the possibilities of how we could have greater engagement”.

Dr Phillips, who will leave Parliament at the next elections, returned to the theme in the sectoral debate, lamenting the social drift and the schisms and apathy that weakened collective endeavour.

“Building the Jamaican nation requires the application of good governance, transparency, integrity, etcetera,” he said. “But it must also be premised on principles of participation, giving citizens an opportunity to be part of the decision-making process.”

It is unfortunate that these questions were not fulsomely explored by the committee, which merely skimmed the surface.

Maybe the matter should be revisited by the next Parliament, after the imminent elections.