KINGSTON, Jamaica — The House of Representatives yesterday postponed closing the debate on a private members Bill, the Banking Services Act 2016, which seeks Government control of fees and charges paid by customers of commercial banks.

Acting leader of the House of Representatives, Everald Warmington, said that the debate would resume next Tuesday when the House meets again.

Warmington’s decision was challenged by Opposition MPs, including Spokesman on National Security, Fitz Jackson, who brought the Bill to Parliament in an attempt to limit the commercial banks from introducing new fees and charges without adequate justification.

Jackson and Warmington clashed and shouted at each other across the aisle after the Speaker, Pearnel Charles Snr, accepted the House Leader’s advice to postpone the rest of the debate to Tuesday despite the Opposition MP’s resistance.

Jackson’s bill emerged from meetings of a sessional select committee of the House of Representatives on the economy and production in 2015, which felt that the banks were going much too far in increasing their fees.

The committee’s discussions on the issue were fuelled by widespread public disapproval of increasing banking fees and closure of dormant accounts by the commercial banks in 2015.

He withdrew the Bill in May last year, after it spent six months on the table of the House, and promised to re-table it within two-three weeks, complaining of a lack of interest to pass it. He re-tabled it in August last year.

Jackson’s Bill claims that fees customers are charged by licensed financial institutions discourage deposits and negatively impact savings, and that the ratio of income earned from the fees, compared with their core banking earnings, is a cause for concern.

Yesterday, Jackson accused Minister of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, Karl Samuda, of being reluctant to sanction the banks, and of trying to delay passage of the Bill.

Samuda told the House that following discussions between the Bank of Jamaica and the banks a settlement of the issue was being sought, in the meantime.

Opposition MPs rejected the suspension of the debate, but lost out 30-21 when they called for a “divide” vote on the matter.

Balford Henry