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DOROTHY LIGHTBOURNE has fumbled yet again. She has led the Senate into a state of dormancy and does not appear convinced that there is work to be done in the Parliament's Upper House.
For five weeks the Senate has not sat. Lightbourne, by virtue of being Senate leader, determines when these legislators meet to discuss the nation's business. Since being sworn in, the Senate has sat just 26 times, less than half the number of times its colleagues in the House of Representatives have sat. While the Order Paper, prepared by Gordon House, remains packed with work for the Senate to discuss, Lightbourne has found it possible to serve up the flimsiest of excuses as to why the Senate has not sat for so long.
"We have not had any bills come down and members are travelling," Lightbourne is quoted as telling yesterday's Sunday Gleaner.
And that's all Lightbourne, who is attorney general, minister of justice and leader of government business in the Senate, would offer. She instead referred the newspaper to Sherene Golding, her parliamentary liaison, to provide the answers.
Sherene Golding, to whom Lightbourne deferred, said the Senate has not been sitting because the members are attending joint-select committees. What utter nonsense.
Surely Derrick Smith would not dare use that excuse if the House of Representatives failed to sit one week.
Wrong principle
The whole principle of having an idle Senate is wrong. While Lightbourne may be correct in saying that there are no bills coming from the Lower House to the Senate for debate (because everything has been sent to joint-select committees), there is plenty on the 'to-do list'.
There are eight private members' motions lingering on the Order Paper for debate. If these were not of national importance, the members would not have brought them.
The nation is also still to hear four key ministers in the Senate outline policy positions and programmes for the year.
Justice reform was high on the agenda of the governing Jamaica Labour Party when it took office in September last year. Yet, Lightbourne has not spoken in the State of the Nation debate, which she has effectively stalled by locking down the Senate for five weeks.
The minister of national security, Colonel Trevor MacMillan, also sits in the Senate. Jamaica is yet to hear from him through the State of the Nation debate.
Important issue
Without a doubt, national security is a most important issue facing the nation. Prime Minister Bruce Golding has enunciated in the Lower House measures Government aims to put in place to make the nation safer. Most of what he has said, however, pertains to the 'draconian' measures to stem runaway crime.
Jamaica is waiting for Minister of National Security Colonel Trevor MacMillan to stand in the State of the Nation debate and defend his Road Map to a Safe and Secure Jamaica, an anti-crime measure he served up while the JLP was in opposition.
Don Wehby and Dwight Nelson, both ministers without portfolio in the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service, have not spoken. We need not explain the need for them to tell the country in no uncertain manner how to plug the hole in the Budget, the revised fundamentals on which the supplementary Budget will be cast and what steps Government will be taking to grow the economy.
Waiting for a bottleneck
However, Lightbourne, who sets the agenda of the Senate, does not seem to believe that these issues must be dealt with with the level of dispatch most Jamaicans should desire.
Perhaps, she is waiting for a bottleneck to take place in the House. Very soon, reports from the various joint-select committees will be coming back to the Senate for debate.
Prime Minister Golding has also outlined an ambitious legislative menu, which he hopes to be completed before Parliament prorogues in March. In pursuit of getting as many things as possible done, the prime minister has told members of parliament (MPs) to be prepared to sit more than the usual one day in the House of Representatives.
All this time, Lightbourne has decided that there is no need for the Senate to do any work until there is a stockpile. We would hate to believe that Lightbourne's thinking of ushering the Senate to bed may be that members may not be inclined to turn up for Senate sittings because they get no pay for it as opposed to joint-select committees for which they get $17,000 per sitting.
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/glean...ead/lead6.html
For five weeks the Senate has not sat. Lightbourne, by virtue of being Senate leader, determines when these legislators meet to discuss the nation's business. Since being sworn in, the Senate has sat just 26 times, less than half the number of times its colleagues in the House of Representatives have sat. While the Order Paper, prepared by Gordon House, remains packed with work for the Senate to discuss, Lightbourne has found it possible to serve up the flimsiest of excuses as to why the Senate has not sat for so long.
"We have not had any bills come down and members are travelling," Lightbourne is quoted as telling yesterday's Sunday Gleaner.
And that's all Lightbourne, who is attorney general, minister of justice and leader of government business in the Senate, would offer. She instead referred the newspaper to Sherene Golding, her parliamentary liaison, to provide the answers.
Sherene Golding, to whom Lightbourne deferred, said the Senate has not been sitting because the members are attending joint-select committees. What utter nonsense.
Surely Derrick Smith would not dare use that excuse if the House of Representatives failed to sit one week.
Wrong principle
The whole principle of having an idle Senate is wrong. While Lightbourne may be correct in saying that there are no bills coming from the Lower House to the Senate for debate (because everything has been sent to joint-select committees), there is plenty on the 'to-do list'.
There are eight private members' motions lingering on the Order Paper for debate. If these were not of national importance, the members would not have brought them.
The nation is also still to hear four key ministers in the Senate outline policy positions and programmes for the year.
Justice reform was high on the agenda of the governing Jamaica Labour Party when it took office in September last year. Yet, Lightbourne has not spoken in the State of the Nation debate, which she has effectively stalled by locking down the Senate for five weeks.
The minister of national security, Colonel Trevor MacMillan, also sits in the Senate. Jamaica is yet to hear from him through the State of the Nation debate.
Important issue
Without a doubt, national security is a most important issue facing the nation. Prime Minister Bruce Golding has enunciated in the Lower House measures Government aims to put in place to make the nation safer. Most of what he has said, however, pertains to the 'draconian' measures to stem runaway crime.
Jamaica is waiting for Minister of National Security Colonel Trevor MacMillan to stand in the State of the Nation debate and defend his Road Map to a Safe and Secure Jamaica, an anti-crime measure he served up while the JLP was in opposition.
Don Wehby and Dwight Nelson, both ministers without portfolio in the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service, have not spoken. We need not explain the need for them to tell the country in no uncertain manner how to plug the hole in the Budget, the revised fundamentals on which the supplementary Budget will be cast and what steps Government will be taking to grow the economy.
Waiting for a bottleneck
However, Lightbourne, who sets the agenda of the Senate, does not seem to believe that these issues must be dealt with with the level of dispatch most Jamaicans should desire.
Perhaps, she is waiting for a bottleneck to take place in the House. Very soon, reports from the various joint-select committees will be coming back to the Senate for debate.
Prime Minister Golding has also outlined an ambitious legislative menu, which he hopes to be completed before Parliament prorogues in March. In pursuit of getting as many things as possible done, the prime minister has told members of parliament (MPs) to be prepared to sit more than the usual one day in the House of Representatives.
All this time, Lightbourne has decided that there is no need for the Senate to do any work until there is a stockpile. We would hate to believe that Lightbourne's thinking of ushering the Senate to bed may be that members may not be inclined to turn up for Senate sittings because they get no pay for it as opposed to joint-select committees for which they get $17,000 per sitting.
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/glean...ead/lead6.html
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