CORRUPTION watchdog National Integrity Action (NIA), following its recently conducted Parliamentary Oversight Project, has concluded that Gordon House, in carrying out its mandate to hold the executive to account, “is significantly debilitated and in urgent need of improvement”.

The assessment conducted under the Strengthening Accountability Networks Among Civil Society (SANCUS) Project — an EU-funded initiative supported by Transparency International — found, according to Professor Emeritus Trevor Munroe, founding director of NIA, that while the legal and constitutional framework of Jamaica’s Parliament makes standard provisions for oversight of the executive, “in practice, there was great variation in the utilisation and effectiveness of parliamentary oversight of Jamaica’s executive”.

The Jamaican Constitution explicitly provides for Parliament to exercise oversight of the executive. It states that the executive, comprised of the prime minister and ministers and the Cabinet is the principal instrument of policy responsible for the general direction and control of the Government of Jamaica.

Within that framework, the constitution states that the prime minister, ministers, and the Cabinet as a whole are collectively responsible to the Parliament. A main function of the Parliament — on behalf of the people — is to hold the Cabinet, the prime minister, and ministers to account.

Speaking at an event in Mona, St Andrew on Wednesday to present the findings of the project and its recommendations, the NIA founding director said the entity, in its assessment, found four particular deficiencies.

In assessing the tabling and answering of parliamentary questions, tabling and debate of private members motions, the tabling and taking of private members’ Bills, and the absence of a Code of Conduct for Parliamentarians, the NIA said there were gaps.

In the 2021-2022 parliamentary year, Members of Parliament (MPs) tabled 21 questions. Of these, only 12 were answered within the time frame required by the standing orders. Similarly, for the same period in respect of private members’ motions, four were tabled in the Senate and debated. One was tabled in the Lower House but was not debated. Two private members’ Bills were tabled but not debated.

The NIA, in the meantime, questioned the absence of the code of conduct for politicians, which was promised in Jamaica’s bipartisan 2009 National Development Plan-Vision 2030.

Munroe said while job descriptions for minister and MPs have recently been placed before a joint select committee, the code of conduct, which apparently has been completed by the Ministry of Legal and Constitutional Affairs, is yet to be placed before that committee.

“A code of conduct would lay down principles which would underpin desired behaviours of parliamentarians and provide a means of imposing sanctions for deviant conduct, thereby enhancing public confidence in the Parliament. Such a code would also provide detailed rules for regulating specific aspects of behaviour, for example, rules governing conflict of interest and behaviour bringing the Parliament into disrepute,” Munroe said. “Of the three co-equal branches of government, the Parliament is unique in having no guidelines for conduct, unlike the judiciary and executive.”

Wednesday, CEO of the Jamaica Accountability Meter Portal (JAMP) Jeanette Calder, in pointing out that the Parliament has done good and solid work over the decades, said, “Having looked at the findings of NIA and in particular the conclusion that parliamentary oversight of the executive is not a main priority for the Jamaican Parliament, [she] would have to agree.”

“That is not only a fair statement but an accurate statement…I think nothing confirms more the idea that parliamentary oversight is not the focus of our parliamentarians than the discussions we have been having in recent times coming off the heels of the increase in the salaries of parliamentarians,” Calder said.

She expressed concern that the annual reports of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC), which does real-time tracking of the macro-critical projects and programme, are not making it to the agenda of the House over the past 18 years, which saw some 900 sittings of Parliament.

She said the Public Accountability Inspectorate (PAI), which was tasked to follow up on the reports submitted by parliamentary commissions and anti-corruption bodies and track the recommendations made by oversight committees and report back to Parliament on the degree of remedial measures undertaken to fix those concerns between 2009 and 2011 did an amazing bulk of work.

“This tiny department, on the back of their report we saw four senior executive members of government who had to leave public office because of the work of the PAI… the cynic among us might say, ‘Maybe it was abandoned because it was working.’ Well I am not a cynic, so I am here to join with NIA in saying this is something the Government should reintroduce,” she said.