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MP tardiness leads to cancellation of committee meeting

Published:Thursday | July 5, 2012 | 12:00 AM
Charles

Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter

TECHNOCRATS from the National Works Agency (NWA) were on Tuesday forced to leave Gordon House without being able to address a committee which had summoned them to answer questions on the revamped Jamaica Development Infrastructure Programme (JDIP).

The Infrastructure and Physical Development Committee meeting, which was scheduled for 10 a.m., was cancelled at 10:45 as there were not enough members to form a quorum.

Only D.K. Duncan, André Hylton and Ian Hayles had turned up for the meeting. Some five minutes after they left, along with the technocrats from the NWA, committee Chairman Pearnel Charles showed up.

"I thought that the meeting was 11. Unfortunately, they say what was communicated to me was 10," Charles told journalists Tuesday.

"We would have the meeting if I had come. I am at fault for coming in after 10 because I thought it was 11."

Charles said: "Committees have always been suffering from a lack of members coming and interest."

Regular practice

He said his committee has adopted the practice of asking members to commit to attending meetings ahead of schedule.

The members of the Infrastructure and Physical Development Committee are Charles, Luther Buchanan, Richard Azan, Hayles, Duncan, Fitz Jackson, Richard Parchment, Dr Lynvale Bloomfield, Karl Samuda, Derrick Smith and Desmond McKenzie.

Gordon House on Tuesday said five members had committed to attend the meeting which had to be cancelled. Those members are Charles, Duncan, Jackson, Azan and Smith.

In the meantime, Charles said despite the cancellation of the meeting, no violence has been done to the work of Parliament in providing oversight of the JDIP.

"They (NWA) have prepared for us what we have asked them to prepare," Charles said, while adding that all members would now be asked to review the documentation provided in anticipation of a meeting next week.

The Infrastructure and Physical Development Committee of Parliament is examining the manner in which the NWA has been implementing the construction of roads and bridges under the rescoped JDIP.

daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com