Support for Parliament

Martin Henry, Contributor

Swirling dust from ministerial SUVs roaring across this potholed country may have obscured an important job-vacancy advertisement appearing in the papers last Sunday.

"The clerk of the Houses of Parliament now seeks the services of two individuals to provide timely, value-added counsel and assistance to the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC)," the ad for a technical adviser and a research officer reads.

This follows at SUV speed a statement by PAAC chairman, Opposition Member of Parliament Edmund Bartlett, just a couple of weeks before that there was "an agreement in principle" for a budget for support services for the committee. "It should be the first committee to have that level of technical support and it is primarily because of the role that the PAAC plays in oversight and the need for us to address and analyse the performance of government MDAs (ministries, departments and agencies) on a continuing basis and, more importantly, for us to be more penetrating in terms of our own enquiries and discussions," Chairman Bartlett explained.

The chairman's statement was in response to complaints from opposition member of the PAAC, Dr Horace Chang, about the lack of technical support for the committee in reviewing the economy. Pointing out the glaringly obvious that parliamentarians were still labouring with an "inherited primitive structure which was not designed to serve the people," Dr Chang said. "I know we can't afford the level of staffing that US congressmen and senators have, but it is important that we have some technical support."

Minister of finance and planning, Dr Peter Phillips, had announced in the Budget Debate in May that the role of the PAAC would be expanded as an oversight committee to ensure that government expenditure is done in accordance with what has been approved by the Standing Finance Committee of Parliament, which is the whole Lower House, and specifically with respect to controlling the debt. The committee would be called upon to table half-yearly economic performance reports.

Underlining the country's cheap approach to the cost of government, Cabinet secretary, Ambassador Douglas Saunders, was quick to console the PAAC members with the big news that the Public Sector Transformation Unit was having discussions with its international development partners on providing technical support for the work of the Parliament. Have we no shame? Even the most basic obligations of government, like having an effectively functioning legislature, must be paid for by others?

IMPORTANT AGENT

The PAAC is an incredibly important agent of the Parliament, charged as it is with keeping tabs on the economy, the performance of the MDAs and, ultimately, the performance of the executive of Government, the Cabinet. It should, long ago, have been provided with the basic tools to get the job done. But apparently no donor had yet stepped up to the plate.

The long Patterson administration (1992-2006) had engineered an extensive system of standing parliamentary committees to oversee various aspects of government, with committees typically chaired by an opposition member. This has to be a significant Patterson contribution to governance and democracy in Jamaica, but is seldom mentioned even when the Parliament itself pours accolades upon the now white head of the retired prime minister.

The short Golding administration strengthened and extended this commendable system. Both men expressed deep frustrations with the performance of government but did nothing to really equip it in its various facets to deliver better performance. The country simply didn't have the money.

The standing committees provide real work for the opposition and for government backbenchers. They provide useful platforms for cross-aisle collaboration and consensus-building for better governance. They should be equipped to work. One of their most basic needs is for data and data analysis. Much of their past operation has been haughty courtroom-type interrogation of hapless public servants summoned to appear before them with little evidence of their own on which to base sound decisions and recommendations.

A matter which came before the PAAC last week Wednesday and which both morning dailies made their lead story the following day was the state of the National Water Commission (NWC). The country is facing a looming water crisis, before which the now regular drought lock-offs will pale in significance, as demand for potable water continues to outstrip the capacity of the state-owned monopoly NWC to supply. There is no absolute shortage of raw water; the problem is to store and distribute. And the NWC cannot increase capacity.

CATCH-22 DILEMMA

As the PAAC heard, the Water Commission is only collecting for 32 per cent of the water piped to consumers and at rates set in 2008 which were already below reasonable cost. Last year, the NWC recorded $3 billion in losses. Government has been forcing the utility to provide social water to all its customers by keeping rates below costs.

So far, PAAC members, in the typical political knee-jerk reaction unsupported by any real comparative analysis, seem to be of the view that the NWC, trapped in a catch-22 dilemma, should improve its efficiencies and not talk about applying to the Office of Utilities Regulation (OUR) for an upward rate adjustment. The commission needs money to improve efficiencies and needs improved efficiencies to contain costs and to keep rates low.

The PAAC technical adviser and research officer will have to hit the ground running on this one! One thing is very certain: starving and punishing the NWC so that artificially cheap water is available now can only exacerbate the looming water-supply crisis.

Aided and abetted by media and by politicians themselves cursing the other side in Government, Jamaicans have developed the foolish habit of wanting to starve and punish 'the ol' tiefing politicians dem' in a truly classic case of 'cut off yuh nose fi spite yuh face'. We want good governance, but not the attached costs.

Starting with resourcing the standing committees of Parliament, how do we mean it cannot be afforded? Why must we seek foreign aid to make it affordable? The operation of the Parliament is a fundamental, top priority call upon the national Budget! How can a mere civil servant like Cabinet Secretary Saunders be setting the agenda for discussing affordability of resources before the powerful PAAC of the country's legislature?

GRAND AESTHETIC VISION

Going past Gordon House, the seat of our Westminster Parliament, you could easily mistake it for a warehouse in a commercial district of the nation's capital.

The original Westminster is an ornate former palace on the banks of the River Thames. We are stuck with a dingy, cramped Parliament building without even an adequate library because the Government is absolutely terrified of building a grand home for the legislature like the ones which can be seen in the capitals of many countries and of which this nation can be proud.

I would love to see a spacious and elegant Parliament building with colonnades set in a garden with statuary of our heroes and past top leaders with meeting rooms and offices, and, of course with adequate support staff.

The country should go on to create a White Hall for the public service. The home White Hall in Britain is a real street with elegant public buildings housing civil service departments. We have had glimmers of this here in the elegance of King's House Square in the Old Capital, Spanish Town; in Justice Square in Kingston; and in that fabulous Georgian courthouse in Falmouth - all of which have been shamefully allowed to decay.

We should go on to upgrade parish council buildings and other public buildings in the town squares of parish capitals. Poverty notwithstanding, the country hungers, in its battered squalor, for gracious and charming public beauty, a source of pride and patriotism.

There have been naysayers against every grand public building project: the National Stadium, Jamaica House, the Jamaica Conference Centre. You name it. All of which have been allowed to decline. The money could be better used to 'help' the poor. But once these structures are up and running, the furore dies away and everyone enjoys them and identifies with them. And these projects create work.

The furore over $60 million worth of SUVs for ministers, stoked and fanned by the media watchdog barking at shadows in a thoroughly cynical country, will also soon die away. Perhaps the protocol of providing vehicles to agents of the Government, both political and public service, needs review, clarification and strengthening.

But equipping ministers with swanky, all-terrain vehicles could hardly hurt the Budget or the interests of the poor. It has, however, severely hurt our pedestrian national commitment to starve and punish 'the ol' tiefing politicians dem'.

Martin Henry is a communications consultant. Email feedback@gleanerjm.com and medhen@gmail.com.