JAMAICANS OVERWHELMINGLY feel Members of Parliament (MPs) should have a dedicated office from which to run their constituency.
This was one of the findings of a poll conducted on behalf of The Gleaner by Don Anderson and his team from Market Research Services Limited.
According to the poll, 97 per cent of respondents on the question "Do you feel that every Member of Parliament should have a constituency office open to the public", answered yes, as opposed to 2.3 per cent who said no. Zero point four per cent gave no response.
The question of MPs having a constituency office has gained a lot of traction over the past six months following a public row between supporters of the two main political parties in Northwest St. Ann over whether opposition MP Verna Parchment was entitled to use the MP's office built by her predecessor, former government MP Arnold Bertram.
Although an agreement was eventually reached for Ms Parchment to have full use of the office, the question still lingers as to whether there should be an official MP's office regardless of which party controls the constituency.
The Anderson poll also showed that a large majority of persons feel that it is the Government and not the MPs who should foot the bill to compensate the staff which work in these offices.
The survey pointed to very strong support for the view that MPs should have a dedicated office and that this office should be open five days per week to facilitate the interests of the constituency.
At a Gleaner's Editors Forum last week, the question was posed to a number of first-term government and opposition MPs.
For Victor Cummings, PNP MP for Central Kingston, the story is the same. "There should be a fully funded constituency office for MPs," he said. "We have a full time secretary, social workers and community advisers. I have to find money to pay everybody".
Clive Mullings, Opposition MP for Northwest St. James, said he has had to use his business office to accommodate the people of his constituency. "I have been advised against this," he said. "We, however, should not have to go this route we should have a proper MP's office which is fully funded."
"Everybody talks about the salaries of MPs but if we had what I call a true level of support governmental support then I could agree on what people are saying about the salaries," noted James Robertson, opposition MP for Western St. Thomas.
He added that: "When that support is not there for running a proper office when you have to take your salary to do this then you will understand why most of us feel that what is coming from the Government is not sufficient."
Field work for the Don Anderson survey was conducted between May 9 and 19, 2003 and involved interviews amongst a total of 1,000 persons aged 18 years and over in all parishes islandwide. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.2 per cent.
