David R. Salmon | Governance reforms that make sense

LAST MONTH’S tabling of the draft job description for members of parliament (MP) was a step in the right direction for good governance and accountability. Nevertheless, more tangible reforms are needed to enhance the quality of representation provided by elected officials. These reforms should not only maximise the interests of voters but must also be palatable to their representatives.

IMPROVE JOB DESCRIPTIONS FOR MPS

Considering these factors, the first important measure is to provide a robust job description of an MP that is accompanied by a transparent assessment criterion. The public must know an MP’s responsibilities. Are they social workers? Are they supposed to lobby for voters’ interests? What criteria should be used to measure their performance? For example, should there be a threshold for parliamentary attendance? These questions must be answered so we can determine what resources are required.

While the tabling of the draft job description was a necessary first step, many of these questions lay unanswered. There were no criteria for key deliverables such as “regular attendance and active participation at sittings of parliament” or “participating in debates on bills and motions”. This is a curious omission given that in a recent sitting of the House of Representatives, several MPs, across the political aisle, identified regular attendance to parliament as an important duty to perform.

Similarly, even though ensuring accountability is a critical role of an MP, there was also no standard given to assess their performance on parliamentary oversight committees. The draft job description for an MP should reflect this and present concrete measures to assess their performance.

INCREASE RESOURCES FOR REPRESENTATION

After these are established, MPs should receive more resources to carry out their functions. Rather than dismantle the Constituency Development Fund (CDF), as some have argued, it should be increased. If the public believes that an MP should play the role of a social worker, then resources should be allocated to reflect this.

Councillors should also be assigned a budget to execute projects in their divisions. This would reduce divisions suffering when there are frictions between a councillor and an MP. Expanded resources should be accompanied by improved oversight of the municipal corporations, as numerous auditor general’s reports have identified them as cesspools of inefficiency.

Furthermore, resources should be made available to enable MPs to carry out their legislative roles. This includes setting aside funds to survey constituents’ needs. Contrary to popular belief, the CDF is a useful institution than can support this goal. Crucially, the Fund relies on parliamentary oversight. Proposals must be approved and reports of projects undertaken must be submitted.

To those who may baulk at these suggestions, it can be argued that the current system incentivises corruption. If a representative has limited resources, that does not mean his constituents’ needs disappear. These needs will have to be addressed somehow.

As noted by the 1991 report from the Stone Committee, which was appointed to give advice to the then Government on MP’s responsibilities, “Most Third World democracies ... show evidence of … welfare benefit politics at the constituency level. MPs cannot ignore this welfare function. They do so at their peril.” This remains true more than 30 years later.

Thus, it is better to allocate resources supervised by parliament for this purpose. This ensures that MPs can carry out their responsibilities and the public can better track their performance.

COMPOSITION OF THE EXECUTIVE

Third, we must expand the pool of persons who can serve in Cabinet. Currently, this is limited to four senators and the party with the parliamentary majority in the House of Representatives. So if a government won only 32 seats, as was the case in 2016, realistically only 36 persons, at most, are eligible to serve in cabinet (32 from the House and four from the Senate).

For an appointment that has such important ramifications for the country, there should be a larger pool of eligible candidates. To achieve this goal, we must first eliminate the cap of persons from the Senate who can serve as a cabinet minister. This would complete reforms to the executive’s powers which began in 1975 and continued through to 1977 and 1986.

With these changes, the number of senators who could serve as ministers increased to four and for the first time, ministers from the Senate were given responsibility for a ministry. The limit on the number of parliamentary secretaries appointed from the Senate was also removed.

Today, the priority should be to attract talent into the executive. Hence, artificial constraints on the number of people able to serve in Cabinet does not address any issue of performance. We should want more capable people in office, not less.

A prime minister should also be able to appoint ministers who sit outside of parliament altogether. This would enable ministers to concentrate on their portfolio without having to split their time being a senator or representing a constituency.

It also means that a prime minister does not have to go through the process to find a safe seat, push out a sitting MP to trigger a by-election to then appoint that minister in the House of Representatives. That’s what had to be done for Jamaica to get the benefit of Dr Nigel Clarke to serve as finance minister.

Political gymnastics like this should be confined to the past. Therefore, it is important that governance reforms take into account the politics of power.

David R. Salmon is a public commentator, development specialist and a Rhodes Scholar. Send feedback to davidsalmon@live.com or on X @DavidSalmonJA, and at columns@gleanerjm.com