Warmington must go

Monday, August 23, 2010

Dear Editor,

It is no secret that I am not a fan of Everald Warmington, member of parliament and junior minister in the water and housing ministry. He deserves no place in our Parliament, let alone his being made a junior minister, assuming the honorific title, "Honourable".

While Mr Warmington has not been the only one who has engaged in behaviour inappropriate for our Parliament, his has become intolerable.

Warmington's recent outburst against Contractor-General Greg Christie and labelling him an "overzealous idiot", arising out of a CG probe into the award of state contracts to a company linked to the parliamentarian, is most disturbing.

But then again, such an utterance from Warmington could very well be construed as a compliment to the CG. My dislike for Warmington aside, I happen to support the calls for him to be relieved of his junior ministerial position. Perhaps the people of South West St Catherine, through the Jamaica Labour Party, will call for the removal of Everald Warmington as the party's candidate for the next general parliamentary elections. It ought to be extremely embarrassing to have such a person as one's representative, political or otherwise.

I do not expect that Warmington will be inclined to do the right thing in voluntarily resigning. I do expect, however, that Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who promised us a new framework of governance within which there would be no tolerance for any scintilla of corruption or alleged corruption on the part of our parliamentarians, will relieve Warmington of his position.

Mr Golding's transgression surrounding the handling of the Dudus/Manatt affair notwithstanding, I hope he will fulfil his promise respecting legislation for the impeachment of parliamentarians or public officials for misconduct, corruption, abuse of office or betrayal of public trust.

Kevin KO Sangster

sangstek@msn.com