Golding questions independence of PM and Speaker, gov’t MPs walk out of parliament in protest
Published:Tuesday | March 19, 2024 | 5:28 PM
Government members led by Prime Minister Andrew Holness this afternoon walked out of Parliament, protesting a statement by Opposition Leader Mark Golding that the head of the legislature and executive were not independent of each other.
“When the former speaker was forced to resign as a result of an Integrity Commission investigation, the move to replace her with the wife of the prime minister, so that the head of Parliament is now the spouse of the head of Government, does not sit well with the tradition that the speaker must act independently of the government of the day,” Golding said.
Member of Parliament for St Andrew East Rural Juliet Holness is the Speaker of the House and wife of Prime Minister Holness.
Golding, whose opposition bench seconded the move to install Mrs. Holness as speaker, was nearing the end of his 2024/25 Budget Debate presentation in the House of Representatives this afternoon when he made the statement.
He prefaced this by outlining that eight government ministers had been either forced to resign or sanctioned for a range of serious breaches; that the chairmanship of most parliamentary committees had been removed from the opposition; and that there had been manoeuvres to delay the tabling of reports from the auditor general and the Integrity Commission.
He argued that the country was in an increasingly low-trust environment.
The Speaker was not present for the statement.
Prime Minister Holness, seemingly peeved, shook his head in disgust before mouthing off mic that Golding's comment was “low and desperate.”
He then left the Lower House and was followed by all Government members present, as opposition members egged on the walkout.
Deputy Speaker Heroy Clarke, who was presiding, was subsequently forced to adjourn the sitting as the number of members of parliament present fell below the required 16 needed to form a quorum.
- Kimone Francis
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