Time for non-partisan examination of parliamentary acts and policies
Published:Friday | August 27, 2021 | 12:06 AM
THE EDITOR, Madam:
It is a crying shame that 30 years of illegal taxation imposed by The HEART/NSTA Trust on its travelling officers was only recently exposed and may result in “lawsuits from aggrieved employees pushing for refunds” ( The Gleaner, August 25).
While policy breaches in government ministries or abuse of Parliament are not new, such occurrences going unnoticed happened because of the political polarisation of the populace blinded by political tribalism and a lazy Opposition not watching over the people’s business.
It was under the People’s National Party (PNP) administration that examples like the need for acts of validation with the passage of bills confirming ministerial orders which have been improperly used, such as the Capital Development Fund (CDF), which were used for several years in “contravention of the Bauxite Levy Act” was introduced in the Parliament. It’s interesting to note that the then Opposition spokesperson on finance, Audley Shaw, said that “employees of the ministry had the responsibility to ensure that the minister who has the ultimate responsibility, is not compromised” ( Jamaica Observer, June 9, 2013).
Five years later, it was a minister of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), Robert Montague, who piloted legislation in 2018 to “indemnify the Transport Authority (TA) from any legal action arising from its collection of fees between December 1, 1989 (when the PNP formed the administration) and December 8, 2015” ( Jamaica Observer, September 20, 2018). For over 26 years, the State had been collecting money illegally from its citizens! A fact overlooked by our parliamentarians, and sadly, the media!
Recently, Opposition spokesperson on energy, Philip Paulwell, has been crying “wolf” over the oil hedge tax as a “five-year deception of collecting hedge fund tax at the pump” ( The Gleaner). This same tax was introduced by a PNP administration under his watch prior to the JLP-led Andrew Holness administration.
In 2013, former OUR boss Zia Mian revealed that the high electricity cost paid by Jamaican consumers was caused by the Government not going to the market for the 480MW plant using any technology, “as the Government was adamant that it would get liquefied natural gas on which the JPS plant would be built to operate”. He further revealed that the then energy minister, Philip Paulwell, “did not tell the JPS (when they were bidding) that they would have to go out and get the gas. You said you would get it, and now that they have to get it, they have found that the gas is not cheap” ( The Gleaner, February 13, 2013).
Sadly, we suffer as consumers because of the inaction of our political parties while in opposition, and we now need an active non-partisan civil society organisation to examine the acts of Parliament and policies of government ministries and executive agencies.
DUDLEY MCLEAN II
Mandeville, Manchester