Lack of respect!!!
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- Details
- Parent Category: Dec 2011
- Category: Week ending Dec 10th, 2011
- Published on Monday, 19 December 2011 16:24
- Hits: 218
EDITORIAL
A recent sitting of Parliament has brought to the fore for public discussion the failure of the system to provide answers to questions that are asked by Parliamentarians. THE NEW TODAY finds it appalling that almost three years after submitting a list of questions to the Senate that Senator Keith Clouden, the farmer’s representative in Parliament, is still to get answers from the Leader of Government Business to these questions.
This total disrespect for the Parliamentary system of government should be dealt with instantly. This newspaper is in no position to blame anyone at this moment. However, it is important to find out whether the Leader of Government Business in the Senate did pass on the questions to the relevant ministers. If in fact this was done then the further question to be asked is if the minister submitted the questions to his/her Permanent Secretary to get the answers.
It is true that the Permanent Secretary is the head of each ministry but the way the system ought to work is that the individual will request answers for the questions from the relevant person in the department like the Senior Assistant Secretary or some other person in rank in the ministry.
However, in the final analysis, it is the responsibility of the Permanent Secretary to provide the answer to the question to his/her minister for submission to Parliament.
The Prime Minister will be failing in his duties to allow his ministers and or civil servants to get away with this nonsense of not doing the research and coming up with the information for Parliament.
If ministers are guilty then the Prime Minister should know what to do with them as members of his Cabinet. In the case of civil servants, it means that those officers who are not doing their work should be reported to the Public Service Commission (PSC) for some form of disciplinary action to be taken against them.
Government employees are paid from the taxes collected by the State. In recent years, there has been increasing signs of some civil servants showing lack of respect for institutions and organs of Parliament such as the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the Houses of Parliament.
This was quite noticeable during the 1995-2008 rule of the former New National Party (NNP) regime when then Chairman of the Commission, former Opposition Leader, Michael Baptiste encountered tremendous difficulties in getting Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Timothy Antoine and then Accountant-General, Patricia Antoine to appear before his body to answer questions.
Mr. Baptiste complained that Mr. Antoine behaved rather indifferently towards the PAC and certainly gave the impression that he was above the law and that no one should be questioning him. The impression was given that the PAC was a waste of his time and Mr. Antoine did not attend some of the sittings to be questioned further by Mr. Baptiste and company
Ironically, the Deputy Chairman of the Senate, Senator Chester Humphrey who is fully aware of the troubles of Sen. Clouden was also a member of the Baptiste-led PAC when Timothy Antoine and Patricia Antoine were summoned to answer questions about the controversial Call Centre project, the Poultry Farm at St. Mark’s and others.
That PAC through Mr. Baptiste was able to stumble upon a questionable loan amounting to some fifteen million dollars that the NNP administration had secured from the Republic of China on Taiwan allegedly without any Parliamentary approval.
It is no wonder that the current NDC government of Prime Minister Thomas, through the new Minister of Information, Senator Glen Noel was able to inform the public that it has seen nothing to suggest that parliamentary approval was obtained by the former Keith Mitchell government in securing two of the four loans that Taiwan are now seeking from the island as part of the 76 million EC dollar debt payment.
How ironical. The same Timothy Antoine who was not willing to appear before the PAC of our Parliament was sent to New York by a Congress government to answer questions in the case brought by Taiwan against Grenada for non-payment of the debts.
The Tillman Thomas government has apparently gone silent on the Taiwan loan issue. If the laws of the country were broken by members of the former administration in not getting Parliamentary Approval to borrow monies then why no action is being taken against them?
When the government behaves in such a manner then civil savants will also take their cue from that and rightfully conclude that if those now in charge of State power are not interested in protecting our institutions such as Parliament then why should they bother to provide answers to questions asked by Parliamentarians.
Can the slide be halted? There is no easy answer to the question. It is extremely difficult to get people to move away from a particular mindset. This attitude is now endemic throughout the system with many public officers having no respect for the political directorate.
The Tillman Thomas government has also found itself in a bind and would be careful about taking any action against civil servants for their deviant behavior with general elections just around the corner. It might be a case of the stable open and the horse having bolted away already.
The bottom line is that the system needs overhauling. A case in point is the serious allegation that a male teacher at the Happy Hill Secondary School had pulled a knife at a 15-year old student following an altercation.
Checks made by this newspaper reveal that the teacher is still on the job and going to the classroom to teach students as usual. This could never have happened in the Royal Grenada Police Force (RGPF) under a disciplinarian like former Commissioner of Police, James Clarkson.
Any police officers suspected of wrong-doing would have been pulled from active duties and kept in the cold pending an investigation into the matter.
Madam Minister of Education, and Permanent Secretary in Education, what is happening at the Happy Hill Secondary School? Why is the teacher still in front of the classroom in light of the serious allegation made against him?
Well, well, well – it might be a simple case of if the priest can play mas then who is me not to play mas.
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