JDIP Mess - Will we ever learn?

THE EDITOR, Sir:

On Friday, November 5 last year, I tabled the following motion in the Senate for debate:

"Be it resolved that, with a view to fostering consensus-building on national issues, in the public domain and not merely behind closed doors, this Honourable Senate urge the Government and the parliamentary Opposition to strive to find a mechanism whereby the imminent road and other rehabilitation programme will be approached in a spirit of general agreement, particularly since such a programme has become strikingly inescapable as a result of acts of God, and as a means of providing an early bridge over severely troubled waters."

As has been usual during these past four years in the Upper House, these kinds of initiatives have not ever been accommodated by the Government side of the chamber. So, the motion was allowed to fall from the Order Paper.

Now, one year later, the Jamaica Development Infras-tructure Programme has become trapped in the vortex that that tabled motion was meant for us to escape: a direct challenge by the government auditor to the management and operations of what was meant to be a game-changing and historic turning point.

The interchange between the dogged opposition spokesman and the halting minister of transport in the House of Representatives on Tuesday last should cause all Jamaica to pause. And, recall that Mr Patrick Wong, the super-powerful head of the National Works Agency, had advised an inquiring journalist that the source of the funding for preliminary arrangements to implement the programme was none of his business.

The truth is that our management of that programme, as a people, is going to define us for the immediate future, and beyond. It is clear that, for projected JEEP or Holness Bus, this programme is an inescapable part of the engine. The protection and the integrity of that engine could have been positively influenced by a meaningful debate in the Senate, which missed the boat, once again. Will we ever learn?

A.J. NICHOLSON

Leader of Opposition Business, Senate