Gov't, Opposition Senators clash over 'scandals'

Opposition Senator Lambert Brown yesterday ripped the Andrew Holness administration as a “government that looks out for the greedy, not the needy.”

However, Government Senator Ransford Braham quickly fired back, asserting that Brown's statement was made without "mature reflection."

Brown, seeking to support his assertion, reeled off what he said was a list of scandals that have surfaced since the Holness administration took office in 2016.

Among them were the scandal uncovered at Petrojam, the state-owned oil refinery, the multi-million contract for the purchase of used cars for the police and the controversial $600 million de-bushing programme.

“No wonder people are saying this is the most corrupt government in the history of Jamaica,” said Brown, who was making his contribution to the State of the Nation debate in the Senate.

“It seems as if the message was sent straight from the Cabinet to everybody in government ‘this is the new order, go forth and be as corrupt as you can. If you are caught we tell you pay it back',” he asserted.

However, Braham, in his contribution to the debate, pointed to perceived inconsistencies in Brown’s utterances on the issue of corruption.

“There was a time when Senator Lambert Brown was not as close as he is to a particular political organisation when he was saying this is the most corrupt,” Braham said to loud applause from his colleagues.

“Senator Brown was a talk show host. I used to listen to him, but his memory fails. I not saying it’s deliberate, it’s just that his memory fails,” he added.

Braham, a former attorney general, said issues of corruption must be dealt with, irrespective of the political organisation that controls the public purse.

“You don’t excuse it. You deal with it. Those who need to resign have to resign and if the public purse was and affected and you need to pay it back you pay it back,” he posited.

Braham said when Petrojam was in dire need of fixing "others put it aside." 

Seeking to dismiss the assertion that the government was looking out for the greedy and not the needy, the former attorney general pointed to the record employment rate Jamaica recorded last year.

"When I hear that in the history of Jamaica we have had the most people employed a say is that for the greedy? Isn't that for the people?" he questioned. 

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