Warmington vows to restore order to Gordon House
Published:Tuesday | February 6, 2018 | 12:00 AM
South West St Catherine Member of Parliament Everald Warmington on Tuesday voiced his intention to take steps, starting in the new financial year, to ensure that parliamentarians observe the requisite decorum consistent with House procedures, at all times.
This has become necessary, especially in light of the ongoing misuse by lawmakers of the privileges provided by way of their office, Warmington told the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) Committee, which he chairs.
"What I have observed is that the parliamentary committees are not adhering to the standing orders from the House, and as acting house leader, it comes to me forcefully, and I believe that the committees are being abused for political grand-standing. I'm just sorry that the members of the Opposition are not here ... and that is not the purpose of the parliamentary committees," Warmington declared.
"I've raised the issue before, and I am going to raise it again in our caucus today that we need to adhere to the letter of the law, as it is written in the standing orders, to eliminate these stuff," he vowed.
With apologies tendered for Denise Daley, member of parliament for East St Catherine, and Mikael Phillips, member of parliament for North West Manchester, the parliamentary Opposition People's National Party had no representatives at the CDF meeting.
'Dishonest ... and I'm disturbed by it!'
Everald Warmington took aim at Member of Parliament for Western Westmoreland Dr Wykeham McNeill, who chairs the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC), in citing an example of the abuse that he has vowed to stamp out.
"The PAAC met, I think, two weeks ago, and the chairman made a statement that because of [the] by-election, North West St Andrew was allocated $91 million, and it is disingenuous and dishonest, to say the least. This was in the supplementary estimates, and at that time, nobody knew that member (Derrick) Smith would have resigned.
"So it is dishonest for any chairman of any committee to go down this road, and as I said yesterday, it is not $91 million, it is $61 million, and there are constituencies and in Kingston and St Andrew that have far more allocated to those constituencies and there is no by-election being held. It's dishonest for anybody to make such a statement, and I am very disturbed about it."