Prime Minister’s overseas trip

Prime Minister Andrew Holness departed Jamaica Friday afternoon for the ninth African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP) Summit of Heads of State and Government, in Nairobi, Kenya.

Holness’ five-day working visit, according to the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), is in line with preparations to finalise the Post-Cotonou negotiations, as well as the revision to its Constitutive Act, the Georgetown Agreement.

At the 110th Session of the ACP Council of Ministers, which will precede thesummit, ministers will appoint the next secretary general for the term 2020-2025. The tenure of the current senior management team expires on February 28, 2020.

In the meantime, Holness is expected to meet with Government officials in Kenya, as well as the Jamaican Diaspora in Nairobi. In August, president of Kenya, Uhuru Kenyatta visited Jamaica as the official guest of the Government for Independence celebrations. Holness was expected to arrive in Nairobi yesterday.

National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang will be in charge of the Government for the duration of the prime minister’s official engagements overseas.

*** What must be of grave concern to Parliament and, indeed, the public must be how the debate on extending the current states of emergency (SOEs) and zones of special operations (ZOSOs) will proceed this week Tuesday, after last week’s sudden departure by MPs from the Opposition’s benches.

The walkout resulted from an exchange involving the current Leader of the House of Representatives, Karl Samuda, and Opposition MP Peter Bunting which, unexpectedly, resulted from Samuda’s responses to a number of questions which had been tabled by the Opposition.

Although there was no real problem with the answers from Samuda to the original questions, temperatures rose over what should have been follow-up questions from Bunting. However, the newly appointed Opposition spokesman went beyond those questions to raise the issue of a newly added member of the board of the Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts (EMCVPA), who had recently been a subject of publicity about sexual harassment at another government institution.

Samuda interpreted the move as an attempt to “undermine” the Government and refused to go any further. Bunting expressed his views about the minister not being prepared to deal with such an issue and the exchange broke down, eventually leading to Opposition Leader Dr Peter Phillips leading a walkout, and Samuda suggesting that his colleagues follow his example.

The truth is that exchanges like these can easily be avoided if the Speaker handles the question and answer period with more authority. However, his efforts to remind the members of the fact that the (Q&A) period is not a debate, but an answer period which allows for pertinent follow -up questions which do not raise new issues, are often ignored.

It is obvious that unless the Speaker becomes more rigid in ensuring that the members stick to the questions already asked, and do not digress into new areas which the minister might not be prepared to answer, there are going to be many more of these exchanges until after the next general election.

However, the debate, which Holness and Chang both started last week, will resume on Tuesday — and it is expected that the Government will get the necessary support for the necessary extensions

*** It is interesting how quietly the public seemed to have absorbed the idea of another effort at eventually having a proper national identification system, or NIDS, which was announced recently by the prime minister in the House of Representatives. This time there seems to be little or no objection to the fact that Jamaica really needs a proper national ID system, if it is to make the grand leap into its 2030 Vision.

The Opposition sought and got assurances from Prime Minister Andrew Holness that the new proposals will focus primarily on creating an effectively digitised ID, and that this time the proposals will be filtered through a joint select committee comprising both sides of Parliament, prior to approval.

However, they may still have to deal with the religious “soothsayers” predicting that the ID is nothing but a chip to be inserted in the brain for mind control, or criminal elements who are afraid that it will not be in their interest for information about them to be so easily accessiible.

This Week’s Parliamentary meetings 

Tuesday, December 10

*10:00 am – Joint Select Committee on The Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organisation) Act, 2014. Presentation from the Ministry of National Security on gang activity in Jamaica; review of the committee’s draft report

* 2:00 pm – Sitting of the House of Representatives

Wednesday, December 11

* 2:00 pm – Joint Select Committee on The Data Protection Act, 2017 – clause-by-clause analysis of the Bill

Thursday, December 12

* 1:00 pm – Regulations lations Committe of the Senate