By Trudy Simpson, Staff ReporterTHE PERFORMANCE of Members of Parliament (MP) attached to the People's National Party (PNP) is to come under greater scrutiny with a new mandatory system which will rate their performance every month.
At a Gleaner Editors' Forum on Tuesday, development consultant and PNP deputy general secretary, Maureen Webber, said the party's National Executive Council (NEC) was establishing 'a long list of guidelines' on how MPs should behave and what they should be doing when they are out in the field representing the party.
The PNP should finish developing the system in three to four months, Ms. Webber said.
"One of the things we are going to be changing is how we monitor the performance of our Members of Parliament. So it's going to have some impact on the decision of who goes further up to the top," she told the Forum at the newspaper's North Street, downtown Kingston offices.
"We are going to be asking the constituents as well as others in the party chain how effective are you as a party person and how effective are you on the ground."
CONSTITUENTS TO PLAY A ROLE
She said the aim is to ensure MPs are carrying out their duties and that representatives 'can't get lost in the shuffle anymore'.
The scores will be determined based on feedback from various groups, including constituents who will get the opportunity to comment on an MP's performance in their area.
"The constituents, they voted in a person for a reason and they should have a say in how that person is performing," said Ms. Webber. "We agree we have to make some changes internally before we even get out on the road, so step one is to develop a profile for Members of Parliament."
The NEC plans to get consensus on the criteria and the system.
"We are going to have to get past that process and then we are going to log on to this change and be more responsive to our constituents; we are actually going to listen to what they are saying more and we are going to give them feedback," Ms. Webber continued, stressing that constituents mean all residents in the divisions and 'not only the people who voted for us."
Non-performers, she warned, will not be tolerated.
"If you are a Member of Parliament and you are not performing and we know you are not performing, we are not going to sacrifice that fact that this is a division which wants a PNP (representative) and leave you sitting there not doing what you need to do."
The PNP in turn hopes to protect politicians from persons who may use the system to create mischief by strengthening their network on the ground and investigating complaints.
