MINISTER of Information, Culture, Youth and Sports Olivia “Babsy” Grange says the government is not opposed to continuing the weekly press briefings at Jamaica House.

However, she said the briefings would not be possible on Mondays, the Cabinet meeting day, because the government would not allow disclosure of important Cabinet decisions prior to bringing them to Parliament.

“I want to talk to the media about a structure which would allow us to table a Ministry Paper, with the Cabinet decisions, in the House on a Tuesday, while allowing the media to pursue those issues with the respective ministers, after it has been tabled,” Grange told the Observer yesterday.

Grange was responding to questions raised about the announcement by Prime Minister Bruce Golding, at a briefing at Jamaica House on Monday, that it was his intention that decisions of the Cabinet be tabled in Parliament prior to be disclosed to the media.

Golding said Monday:

“The final point I want to make is how we intend to handle Cabinet meetings and the reporting of those Cabinet meetings.

“We believe it is important to keep the Jamaican people fully informed. We know that there is a practice in the past administration for weekly post-Cabinet press briefings, and we appreciate that that provides the media with an opportunity to know what transpired out of Cabinet, to raise questions and so on.

“While not wanting, for one moment, to elasticise the media’s access to information, one of the things that we feel strongly about is restoring the supremacy of Parliament, strengthening Parliament and, therefore, we feel that we have a duty before calling press briefings, we have a duty to report the decisions of Cabinet to Parliament.

“What we propose to do in the future is that, Cabinet will meet on Monday. We intend on the Tuesday, which will be a normal sitting day for Parliament, to lay a Ministry Paper in Parliament outlining the decisions that were taken by Cabinet the day before, and then use that as a basis on which the media can then approach the relevant ministers, whose portfolios may have been affected, or may have been involved in those decisions, for those ministers to expand and to elaborate as much as possible.

“I do feel that as consummate as are the skills of our minister of information, and as good as any previous minister of information might have been, we do feel that it is more appropriate for the media, and it is more useful we believe, for the media to actually get a chance to speak directly to the minister who is directly involved and who can, therefore, give you a much better response in terms of the policy thinking, the backgrounding and the actual decisions that are made.

“And, I instructed the ministers today that once that Ministry Paper is presented to Parliament, they must make themselves available to the media for such expansion, elucidation, clarification as may be necessary.

“There is something else I want to give a commitment on, and that is to make myself available to the media on a scheduled basis. To sit down and, as I said to the minister of information today, I am prepared to book two hours and to sit with the media once a month.

“I am going to ask her to have discussions with you as to how you think it will be most useful to you. Whether on the record/off the record, strictly on the record, strictly off the record. I will want her to have discussions with you to determine how could it be most useful to you to use that time to have discussions with me in terms of general policy directions, in terms of specific issues that will arise from time to time.

“I am going to ask her to follow up that with you. And to have them scheduled on a regular basis, whether it is the last Thursday in the month, the second Tuesday, whatever. And to shift it only when circumstances require and could not be avoided. And, if so, either to bring it forward or to put it back a few days to accommodate whatever exigencies that may arise.”