Politicians far from mature!
Published:Monday | October 25, 2010 | 12:00 AM
THREE MONTHS ago, The Gavel asked that the veil of secrecy around the use of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) be torn down. We argued then that secrecy is the shield often used by the corrupt to hide their deeds and that there is no compelling reason for the CDF to be deliberated on in camera.
Legislators yielded a few weeks ago, but have since said the media has an agenda to destroy the CDF and have signalled that they could be reverting to the days of presiding over the use of taxpayers' money without the glare of the public.
Everald Warmington, the com-mittee chairman, in a nasty attack on democracy, has labelled as "gutterism" the media's reporting of facts about the use of the CDF. We believe that his suggestion that the doors to the CDF committee be closed on the media painted him as a totalitarian leader who will tell the press what to write and how to write. That is most unfortunate.
But there is something most sinister about the way our politicians operate. Despite Jamaica being rated highly on the press freedom index, it is clear they believe they are more equal than everyone in the country, to the point where they should get preferential treatment. They want the media to report on the projects implemented under the CDF and stop dwelling on the way the money is being spent, who is spending the money and the reasons for the projects.
But even Dr St Aubyn Bartlett, a government member of parliament (MP) who wants to see the media chased from observing CDF issues, is far from impressed with the kinds of projects being implemented.
" ... Because some of the projects that are coming before us, when you look deep into those projects, they smack of what they (media) are talking about. The 'creng creng' - food and those sorts of things," Bartlett said at one CDF meeting. The media were not allowed, but Hansard, the official record of parliament, had taken note of the comments.
Moveta Munroe, head of the CDF unit, is also not impressed with projects being put forward. She said that "in terms of projects that have come here, the category that is most disturbing is economic enablement" which, she says, in "a number of instances, economic enablement is seen as a wanton waste of taxpayers' money".
Full transparency
But it is in this context that some legislators, led by Warmington, Bartlett and Derrick Kellier, want the media to be blinded in relation to how the taxpayers' money is being spent, or what some MPs wanted to do with taxpayers' money. This year, for example, $1.1 billion in projects has been approved by Parliament for CDF spending. Each MP has been allocated up to $20 million to do projects in their constituency.
The Gavel, like this newspaper, has a particular view of the CDF. We do not believe that MPs should be given money to spend. MPs, we believe, in representing their constituents, do not need a wad of vote-buying cash to get their job done. Instead, it is their duty to ensure that the systems that have been established to work on behalf of the people are well-oiled and always responsive.
The central responsibility of an MP should be to pass legislation, whether original or changes to existing acts. Their function should also extend to the support or criticism of proposals placed before Parliament by the Government.
But since it is the case that our MPs have decided they want to be project managers too, we believe that because the CDF has become the critical plank on which MPs are basing their service, the public has a right to know the consideration given to every dollar spent. If Warmington succeeds in chasing the media from observing the CDF meetings, it would be worse than the erecting of the 'doodle door'.
Let us recall the decision by former Speaker of the House Michael Peart, in 2006, to erect a door barring journalists from the Hansard area of Parliament because photographer Michael Gordon had accessed the area and got an award-winning shot of then Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, who was doodling during a debate on a no-confidence motion against her Government. Gordon was watching from the Hansard gallery directly overlooking the government benches.
When the doodle door came down, we thought it marked a maturing of our politicians. We were wrong. The development last week is one of the clearest indication about the way legislators view the press, and best explains why the proposed reformation to our century-old libel laws is tied up in cobweb in Gordon House.