PARLIAMENT is heavily burdened and constrained by its lack of resources. However, despite the limitations it has been able to host two very important international conferences this month.

The first was the conference on strengthening legislative oversight, held June 2-4 at the Jamaica Pegasus, New Kingston.

It was sponsored by the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and ParlAmericas (or Parliamentarians for the Americas), a hemispheric group of parliamentarians committed to improving national and hemispheric democratic processes.

The second was an inter-parliamentary conference on combating the illegal weapons trade in Latin America and the Caribbean.

This conference, held June 25-26 at the Jamaica Pegasus was organised by the Parliamentary Forum on Small Arms and Light Weapons (SALW). The discussions focused on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) and the 2001 United Nations Programme of Action to Combat, Prevent and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects (UNPoA).

Considering the lack of resources at Gordon House, the international agencies, including the World Bank and the UN, must have invested quite liberally in the staging of these meetings, and we only hope that they will not turn out to be just the usual “talk shops”.

After all, these are very important issues for the country and its parliamentarians, and as the responses to the issues showed, many other developing nations within the region, the Commonwealth and the hemisphere.

This column reported on June 7 that one of the highlights of the conference on oversight capacity was the call by former minister of finance and the public service, Audley Shaw, who chairs the local Public Accounts Committee (PAC), for his committee to be given authority to review the annual reports of the Office of the Contractor General (OCG).

Coincidentally, about the same time the OCG’s annual report for calendar year 2013 was tabled in the House of Representatives, although it was dated by the OCG as being sent to Gordon House on April 27, 2015.

The fact is that when these reports are sent to Parliament, after they are tabled and the media takes from them what they think is newsworthy, that’s it.

It is therefore no surprise that several of the Commissions of Parliament, including the Parliamentary Ombudsman, the OCG, the Office of the Public Defender (OPD), the Corruption Prevention Commission and the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) have consistently criticised the lack of oversight and the failure to review their reports and give consideration to their recommendations.

In fact, I have been closely monitoring the issue for sometime, and recall that in mid-February, the Leader of the House of Representatives Phillip Paulwell successfully moved a resolution for issues surrounding the killing of disc jockey Robert Hill (Kentucky Kid) be reviewed by the relevant committee of Parliament.

Hill’s killing went public in October 2014, after three cops and two civilians, who were accused of being involved in his 2009 shooting death, were freed in the Home Circuit Court.

They were freed after the Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn told the court that she was withdrawing the case, as there was no evidence linking the five to Hill’s murder.

Paulwell said that a report from the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), as well as the response from Llewellyn would be reviewed by a committee chaired by deputy speaker of the House, Lloyd B Smith.

The background to this committee is that it was established by the previous government, following similar complaints from the commissions of parliament, with former JLP MP, Marisa Dalrymple Phillibert, who was then the deputy speaker, as its chair. However, since the change of government it has not sat.

This fact was

confirmed after INDECOM

complained about parliament

ignoring its reports and recommendations. So Hill’s case was to be the first under the reconstituted committee under Smith.

Four months had passed without the committee doing the review of Hill’s case, and we sought some answers from the Clerk to the Houses of Parliament, Heather Cooke.

We were informed by the Clerk that, in fact, Pauwell’s request was for the committee to meet and inform him, whether or not the issue should be referred to the Cabinet, within a month of it being referred to the committee.

We have not heard the matter brought to the House of Representatives for the referral to be resubmitted to the House. However, we have noticed that included in the schedule for this week’s meetings at Gordon House is a meeting of the “Commissions of Parliament Committee”, on Wednesday at 10:00 am, possibly to look into the Hill Affair.

We certainly look forward to that meeting, because the reconstitution and reactivation of the committee is something that this column has pursued on several occasions.

It is really unbelievable that a democratic parliament, based on the same principles as Westminster, could have ignored the reports and recommendations of its own commissions for so long. It is certainly evidence of our parliament’s lack of respect for human rights issues, as it focuses on the economic issues.

It is really regrettable that important social and human rights issues, being tackled by these commissions of Parliament, could have been pushed so far into the background, while we focused on the provisions of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF) and the demands of its author, the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

However, let’s hope that the reactivation of this committee is a sign that Parliament is again ready to assume responsibility for the proper oversight of its critical commissions.

*** By the way, we recall that in the 2014/15 sectoral debate, Minister of Transport, Works and Housing, Dr Omar Davies, strongly rejected the idea of zoning in the secondary school system.

According to Dr Davies then:

“I wish to say to the minister of education, as well as his planning officials, that any attempt to restrict children from inner-city schools to attending high schools in their communities, will be strongly opposed by the parents in South St Andrew, who have sacrificed to support their children in school”.

Dr Davies went on:

“They will see this as an attempt to discriminate against them and their children.”

Zoning is the programme of restricting successful candidates in the GSAT examinations to high schools in or around their communities.

Davies’ statement, which was greeted by most of the members of parliament (MPs) present, was in response to one which had been made by Minister of Education Ronald Thwaites earlier in the meeting of the House’s Standing Finance Committee (SFC).

Thwaites had said that he supported the policy, as it would relieve parents of additional transportation costs for their children to go to and from school.

Thwaites said then that the idea was not to diminish educational options available to the children, but to make learning easier for them.

Seems like the goodly deacon has managed to convince the transport minister and the supportive MPs that zoning might be a good policy, after all.

This week’s Parliament schedule

*Tuesday, June 30: 9:00 am — Constituency Development Funds (CDF); 2:00 pm — sitting of the House of Representatives;

*Wednesday, July 01: 10:00 am — Reports of the Commissions of Parliament Committee; 2:00 pm — Joint Select Committee of Integrity Commission Act;

Friday, July 02: 10:00 am — Sitting of the Senate.