Garvey questions JADCO’s funding status after world record ‘fiasco’

With decibel levels raised sharply in Gordon House on Thursday, lawmakers Natalie Garvey and Olivia Grange clashed over the use of the word “fiasco” to describe the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO) testing foul-up that denied Jamaica’s women’s Under-20 4x100m relay team a place in the record books last April.

Jamaica’s 42.58-second world-record clocking in Kingston was rejected by World Athletics because one of the four members of the quartet of Serena Cole, Tina Clayton, Brianna Lyston, and Tia Clayton was not drug -tested at the completion of the race.

The young women – with Lyston substituted for Kerrica Hill – again smashed the record in August.

Garvey said that what took place at the National Stadium last year denied the young Jamaican athletes of their well-deserved accolades.

A peeved chairperson of the Standing Finance Committee Marisa Dalrymple Philibert also resented the word “fiasco”. However, no one referenced the word as being unparliamentary and against the rules or spirit of the Standing Orders or Erskine May, the so-called bible of parliamentary practice in the United Kingdom.

Grange reacted swiftly to shut down Garvey’s question on the issue that triggered national debate.

“We are not doing any one-upmanship in here,” Grange declared, indicating that parliamentarians should not “play politics” with civil servants.

Garvey intervened on a ‘point of order’, but Grange was unrelenting, causing Dalrymple Philibert to call for silence.

The chairperson directed Garvey to confine her questions to the Budget, but immediately afterwards, the opposition member of parliament dismissed any suggestion that she was seeking to “pull down” civil servants.

“It wasn’t about the civil servants, but the process,” she added.

“In light of what took place at the Stadium, when the athletes were denied their accolades because of the fiasco which took place as it relates to anti-doping, I am seeking to know now, based on the budgetary allocation here for JADCO, is it going to be sufficient to ensure that there is not a repeat of the fiasco?” Garvey questioned.

Noting that she and Garvey enjoyed good relations, Grange urged her counterpart to retract the comment.

“She started by making reference to a fiasco, and I objected to that and I am asking her to withdraw it because we are talking about people who are serving this country,” the sports minister said, adding that her ministry admitted that there were issues that should have been handled differently.

Garvey said that those athletes that were affected would consider what took place as “an unfortunate fiasco”.

Expressing annoyance with Garvey, Dalrymple Philibert urged her to withdraw the comment.

With a chuckle that progressed into laughter, Garvey said, “Madam Chair, it seems like the F-word is giving you a problem, so let’s use another word.”

Bringing up a thesaurus on her mobile phone, Garvey replaced ‘fiasco’ with ‘unfortunate disaster’.

“Is that a better word, Minister?” she asked.

The chairperson continued: “Let us never go that route, and you should not allow anybody to help you to put disaster instead of fiasco. That makes a mockery of what we are doing.”

Still amused by the chairperson’s remarks, Garvey eventually retracted “fiasco” and instead used “unfortunate” alone to describe the events.

Garvey urged Grange to ensure that the error made by JADCO did not recur.

Grange said that steps had been taken to restore confidence in JADCO.

The minister said that JADCO began training in order to implement the paperless anti-doping sample selection process in its quest to do the right thing going forward. She said this would improve the efficiency of the doping-control programme.

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