Walkout a warning - Opposition
Published:Thursday | April 21, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Erica Virtue, Senior Gleaner Writer
Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller yesterday said her party would be taking questions about the Budget outside the chamber of Gordon House, placing issues of concerns before the Jamaican people.
"I am sending a warning to the Government, and I say look at the last election and look at the results. It's not that big for them to be behaving and knocking their chests," Simpson Miller said.
The Jamaica Labour Party won 32 of the 60 seats in the House of Representatives in the last general election held in 2007. Simpson Miller's People's National Party won the remaining 28.
Yesterday, Simpson Miller led a walkout of the parliamentary Opposition during the examination of the Estimates of Expenditure for the 2011-2012 year.
The writing was on the wall from early afternoon that the session would be stormy when it became clear that responses being sought by the Opposition would not be forthcoming as promised.
Immediately after the walkout, the Opposition convened a press conference where it stated its position.
"There is nothing in this book about the $8.7 billion. There are no sets of roads, there is nothing where we can have transparency or work done against money spent for accountability or quality of work done. What do we have? We have on Page 41 of this document Public Bodies, the full statement on the expenditure of $8.7 billion, there are seven bullet points," Opposition Spokesman on Finance Dr Omar Davies said.
He said the walkout is a principled stance by the Opposition.
"Unless we get what is right, and we are asking for basic information about Government's plan. Unless you take a stance and sometimes you have to draw a line in sand," he said.
subject to disrespect
Aside from being unable to get palatable answers from ministers, Simpson Miller said members of the opposition were being subjected to disrespect from government MPs.
"As leader of the opposition, I am not going to tolerate the disrespect. And if we have to take our concerns outside, we will," Simpson Miller said.
Meanwhile, the governing JLP described the Opposition's walkout as hypocritical, saying the plan was premeditated.
"The leader of opposition business, before the start of the expenditure, asked that we follow a protocol. Where questions are asked and the ministers are not able to provide them right away, that they will document them and hand them to us and we will hand it to them before the start of the Budget debate," House Leader Andrew Holness said.
He added: "They handed in 20 questions to us today and there were no questions about the roads."
The Government continued the examination of the Estimates of Expenditure after the Opposition left the chamber and passed them.