House clock ticking on tardy MPs
Published:Monday | December 13, 2021 | 12:09 AM
Lawmakers may be hard-pressed to keep a 1 p.m. appointment for a meeting of the Standing Finance Committee, which is scheduled for Tuesday, December 14, based on their track record in recent years.
At the last sitting of the House of Representatives, Leader of Government Business Edmund Bartlett, House Speaker Marisa Dalrymple Philibert, and Deputy Speaker Juliet Holness all expressed concern about their ability to meet this deadline.
At about one hour and 42 minutes into last Tuesday’s sitting of the House, as she tried to get Manchester North Western Member of Parliament (MP) Mikael Phillips to yield on a point, in the interest of time, Dalrymple-Philibert made this observation.
“I don’t know if members of the House are aware that this evening we have started later and later the Parliament. We started at 3 o’clock this evening. It was very difficult to get members here to deal with the agenda, and we understand that, but it is not excusable,” she pointed out.
Sittings of the House are scheduled to start at 2 o’clock in the afternoon but rarely start on time.
This seemed to be uppermost in the mind of Bartlett when he advised of the pending meeting of the Standing Finance Committee to receive a report from the governor of the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ).
“It is to be appreciated that this report is part of the new BOJ Act, which has created the independent governor, whose responsibility, among other things, requires him to report biannually to the Parliament,” said Bartlett.
“So in that context, I would urge members to be on time at 1 o’clock so that they can receive the report from the governor and have their opportunity to interact with the governor at the level of legislators.”
Holness, who had replaced Dalrymple Philibert in the Speaker’s chair, also reiterated the importance of MPs being on time.