Lambert Brown
There are over 2.7 million Jamaicans living here. The price of bread, fertiliser, chicken, steel and other commodities continues to rise, affecting us all. We face a massive energy crisis given the world's astronomical oil prices. Violence continues unabated in our schools and communities. Numerous other social and economic issues, including significant job losses, are adversely affecting our people and demand the collective wisdom of our parliamentarians. Unfortunately, in recent times, our Parliament has not benefited from serious discussions aimed at addressing these critical challenges that face all our people. Our Parliament must be a place where the people's representatives engage in vigorous debates, informed by proper research, aimed at finding ways to ameliorate the living conditions of all our people.
Unfortunately, our parliamentarians have dedicated too much time to sideshows instead of debating the real problems plaguing all our people. One such sideshow was the debate over the pension for the present prime minister.
Orett Bruce Golding has been prime minister for less than six months. He is not about to retire voluntarily as prime minister or as a legislator any time soon. Yet, his government, instead of discussing urgent, burning issues affecting the overwhelming majority of our people, chose to use valuable parliamentary time to debate and pass a law which could, in reality, affect only one individual.
No change in law needed
Any future prime minister can, with even the smallest of majority, restore the former law which allowed for prime ministers to receive a pension at the level of salary paid to the incumbent prime minister. If and when this is done, as Golding realised, no future prime minister could ever reduce or "roll back" such pension benefits. The Constitution of Jamaica expressly prohibits such misadventure. A current prime minister can only personally and voluntarily elect to take a lesser pension. If any prime minister wants to make such an election, no change in the law would be necessary.
Consider at the time of retirement a simple one-paragraph letter to the accountant general. The following could have sufficed: "I, Orett Bruce Golding, being a former prime minister of Jamaica, hereby agree to be paid only two thirds of the pension entitled to me. The other third should be paid to my favourite charity or remain in the Consolidated Fund to be used for the general good of Jamaica." No new law was necessary. No need existed to print hundreds of pages of paper to present the bill. No need to waste Parliament's time; no need to try and fool up the Jamaican people. No grand-standing was needed.
For over 10 years, former prime ministers or their spouses have been receiving pensions at the level of the salary of the incumbent prime minister. In 2005, the P.J. Patterson government passed a law to formalise this arrangement. Bruce Golding opposed the law. This law confirmed the benefits being paid to several Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) officials. Golding's opposition led to fallout in the JLP. The widow of a former JLP prime minister resigned as a trustee of the JLP. She knew why the arrangement had been put in place. She knew the decision of the then government was honourable and fair. She knew that former prime ministers and widows of former prime ministers would be adversely affected by Golding's position.
During the general election campaign, promises were made to roll back the pensions of former prime ministers. With the help of a cartoonist in another newspaper, the notion of avarice rather than compassion being the foundation for the improved pensions for former prime ministers, was sold to the gullible. In his first broadcast to the nation as prime minister, on November 11 last year, Golding assured the nation that his Government would shortly roll back the pension payable to former prime ministers.
Did the recent act achieve that? Absolutely not! The failure of important sections of the media to expose this façade is worrying. An extended honeymoon has been given to the new government. Truth is being suppressed and partisan postures being taken where objectivity is desired. The country deserves truth from our journalists, not laziness leading to the accepting and transmitting of political spin. The country expects our journalists to hold up and thoroughly scrutinise the words of our politicians and match them against deeds. In this matter of pension of prime ministers, our country has been short-changed by the Fourth Estate.
Regrettably, they are some people in Jamaica who believe that what the prime minister wants he must get. To them, it matters not whether such demands conflict with the Constitution or are lacking in justice and decency. The concentration of power in the Office of the Prime Minister, with seven members of the political directorate bundled up at Devon Road, in addition to having the largest Cabinet since Independence, confirms that the Government shares the view that it should be its way or the highway. When we add this view to the tendency of the prime minister to get 'vex' and 'angry', we ought to appreciate the need to challenge and condemn this dangerous and alien intrusion into the body politic. The Government must be reminded that the voters of Jamaica signalled in September that they wanted cooperation and dialogue rather than the pursuit of partisan and personal interest at the expense of the national good.
Missed opportunity
Unfortunately, the Government missed the opportunity in Parliament to assure the nation that it genuinely wanted dialogue rather than a power grab. The Opposition called for bipartisan discussion and consensus. This was unceremoniously rejected. Instead of rational discourse and acknowledging that there was no practical benefit to passing the pension law at this time, we were exposed to the stupidity of the majority blindly following the leader down an obviously flawed course.
The recent attempts at select exposure of land sales in Parliament was yet another example of time-wasting driven by the divisiveness and mud-slinging path on which our parliamentarians have embarked. If we want to avoid a rapid descent to the slimy gutters of tribal politics potentially contaminating our parliamentary system with the noxious stench of raw partisanship at a time when national unity is needed, then it is time to stop and take stock. Parliament must eschew the national pastime of time-wasting and embrace the concepts of productivity, efficiency and effectiveness. The people will follow.
Lambert Brown, is president of the University and Allied Workers' Union, and can be contacted at labpoyh@yahoo.com.
