AT least one Member of Parliament (MP) is complaining bitterly about banks barring or closing accounts used for the operation of constituency offices.

According to MP for Manchester North Western Mikael Phillips, the funds he gets to manage his constituency office have “nowhere to go because the bank keeps blocking it from coming to — what I have for the last 11 years as — a constituency account”.

“Now what it forces is that you have to now get a cheque and lodge it to your own personal account, which for me that is something that I don’t want to mix up Parliament money with my own personal account,” he said.

Phillips, an Opposition spokesperson and chairman of Parliament’s Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC), raised the issue during Wednesday’s meeting, noting that “for a couple of years now” he has heard MPs complaining about banks closing these accounts “and that should not be so”.

“I think that once you’re elected there should be something coming from the Ministry of Finance, the Parliament, that each constituency office — each constituency — should be able to open a bank account; without in this instance they’re asking me for financials, they are asking for all different things, because the bank account should not be my name, but it should be in the name of the constituency itself,” he argued.

“…How it is that we deal with the financial institutions because they refer to us as politically exposed persons and where the oversight of the spending of the public’s funds is concerned, that should be done where we are assisted in having these accounts opened and operated,” he added, noting that he plans to raise the issue with with the minister of finance.

Meanwhile, Opposition committee member Fitz Jackson contended that in relation to MPs being politically exposed, the Bank of Jamaica has said this has to do with an international agreement or convention that they have signed on to.

Jackson said: “What we have done is to make those entities more supreme than the Parliament of Jamaica. That undermines the functionality of the members that make up the Parliament and the members who make the laws in this country.”

“It’s not a personal favour you are asking for or a personal benefit. It’s just to be facilitated to do what you’re elected to do. It’s an indictment on all of us and if we can set up to these entities to protect our interests, one would question our competence and ability to make representation for the people who elect us. It is an indictment on us and we should require the minister of finance to address the matter with expediency so that it doesn’t exist,” he said, suggesting that a recommendation be included in the committee’s next report to Parliament to have the matter addressed.

Government committee member Krystal Lee said that this matter will also be raised for deliberations with the joint select committee reviewing the job descriptions for MPs.