THE RESIGNATION of Ronald Thwaites as Member of Parliament for Central Kingston will hardly have come as a surprise given the accusations that have swirled around him particularly in the past several days.
Over the weekend, the Prime Minister and Leader of the Peoples National Party, Mr. Patterson announced that a three-member committee of the party had been set up to look into the matter and report to him.
Mr Thwaites himself had gone on radio to defend himself against anonymous allegations in a newspaper column on the ground that the circumstances and events "are some of those with which I am connected".
The courtesy of the letters exchanged between the Prime Minister and Mr. Thwaites aside, it is clear that the report from the Committee comprising the Chairman of the party, Robert Pickersgill, the General Secretary, Mrs. Maxine Henry Wilson and the Attorney-General A.J. Nicholson was such that the Member of Parliament had to go. But this cannot be treated as an internal party matter which has ended with the resignation of Mr. Thwaites.
Grave and serious allegations have been made which were considered serious enough for the Prime Minister to set up a committee to look into the matter and for action to be taken on the basis of its findings.
Mr. Thwaites from all reports was a good MP in terms of his constituency representation. As a public officer the public has a right to know what the committee found during the course of the investigations and if there are aspects of his conduct that ought to be pursued.
Denying being involved in any wrong-doing, Mr Thwaites initially indicated that he would not resign; but has now declared that he would step down and endeavour to clear his name.
The country, we would suggest, cannot countenance nor condone any cover-up despite the fact that this is an election year and negative revelations could be extremely damaging to the governing PNP.
