Angry AJ turns to contractor general for answers

Inside Parliament

Alicia Dunkley

Sunday, October 30, 2011

OPPOSITION Senator AJ Nicholson is on the warpath over the alleged actions of a government minister who, he is charging, "extracted millions" from a group of importers under less than ethical circumstances.

Nicholson, who had first raised the issue by way of questions in the Senate on September 30 this year, was expecting answers after the usual 21-day waiting period had ended.

But in failing to get said answers from the Government during Friday's sitting of the Upper House, an irritated Nicholson withdrew the questions, which he said will now be sent to Contractor General Greg Christie for investigation.

Senator Nicholson asked the Senate's leave to withdraw the questions and forward them to Christie after Leader of Government Business in the Senate, Dwight Nelson, blindsided him by refraining to provide answers, saying that the matter had been already discussed in the public domain.

Nelson told the Senate: "I am advised that the substance of this question has been aired very comprehensively on public radio, so I will address the answers to the question in due course".

Senator Nicholson, however, reminded senators that "when questions are tabled, they are not to be commented on publicly", and proceeded to explain his own contribution to the public discourse.

"The questions were commented on publicly by the minister involved at a meeting in Manchester, where foreigners were present," he said.

"It was claimed that I, who had tabled these questions in the Senate, would be invited when the children of these schools (that were to receive funding from money allegedly solicited) are receiving what they are supposed to receive. I went on radio to tell the people of Jamaica that the questions had been tabled," Nicholson noted.

Senator Nicholson went on to charge that he did not believe his questions were ever going to be answered.

"Any motion, question or otherwise that has been tabled in this Senate by me since 2007 has been allowed to fall from the Order Paper, as if to say that motions or questions that are being tabled or asked are for my benefit. It's not for my benefit. I seek to withdraw the questions with the leave of the Senate and I will send them to the contractor general," he declared.

He was able to do so without any objections.

Speaking with the Sunday Observer afterwards, Senator Nicholson said the Government minister in question, invited some importers to a meeting at a Corporate Area hotel on September 13 of this year.

"He tells them, first of all, they have to pay $5,000 to defray the expenses for holding the meeting, which they did. Secondly, while at the meeting, he suggests that they must give him money to help schools. Millions of dollars were collected from them," claimed an outraged Nicholson.

"Isn't there a direct conflict of interest there? Is this influence peddling?

"Why on earth (do) they refuse to answer the questions?" Senator Nicholson queried.

"I am sending them to the contractor general, the attorney general and the Cabinet secretary," he added.

The Opposition senator is demanding to be told the person to whom the minister was accountable for the millions extracted at what he described as the "government-sponsored meeting".

He is also asking whether "this ill-advised action on the part of the minister has not compromised the Government, inclusive of the public service, in decisions that are to be made relating to the grant, denial and suspension of import licences, among other things".

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Angry AJ turns to contractor general for answers