Dawn Ritch, Contributor
WHEN WILL the Government, its agencies and Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition realise that this is not the time to be in an expansionist mode?
The Electoral Advisory Commission (EAC) says it will recommend to Parliament that the number of constituencies be increased from 60 to 63.
This will require an amendment to the Constitution, the objective of which is to avoid the two political parties winning the same number of seats. The deadline for the change is March 9. The Jamaica Labour Party has said that it is anxious that there be no delay.
Did the alternative solution, which is reducing the number of seats in Parliament, occur to any of the great and good in the political firmament? The number of constituencies in the island could be increased, but the number could also be reduced. Both actions would meet the same objective of having an odd number of seats. But the latter will achieve it at vastly less cost to the taxpayer.
CONSTITUTION
The EAC has advised that under the Constitution, there must be a minimum of 15,000 to a maximum of 33,000 voters in every constituency, and that some constituencies are fast approaching the maximum. Since the Constitution has to be changed to deal with the population growth anyway, why not increase the number of voters per seat, rather than the number of seats?
Creating more seats for parliamentarians is an insupportable expense in a time of austerity and national crisis. Jamaica is so deep in debt that not even the public sector can pay its bills. The object now among serious-minded people must be to reduce public expenditure urgently, not increase it.
It would seem that there's not a serious person among them. Bear in mind that sitting on the EAC are independent members and bright lights from the two major political parties. It is they who propose to plunge us into the financial abyss of an even bigger Parliament. And this, when the already over-bloated Parliament is failing miserably in its duties to the country.
Murder, corruption and unemployment are becoming endemic to the island. Yet its political representatives are given every comfort and consideration, and their pay increased. So luxurious are these arrangements, that it is proposed to extend them to still more politicians, as yet unelected.
Even when Members of Parliament lose their seats on the Government benches, they are regularly re-hired as consultants in the public sector. Since nothing works anywhere, these consultants and advisers seem hardly worth the money at over $100 million per annum. Is there no end to the money to which politicians feel themselves entitled?
Those consultants on the public pay bandwagon, whom nobody elected and who are serving no useful purpose, must be jettisoned. Jamaica still has a civil service with Permanent Secretaries so skilled and so very able that it is a pleasure to communicate with them when the need arises. The MPs should let them do their jobs, and try to get on with theirs.
In this regard the M.P.s now have role models in the Parish Councils since the recent Local Government election. We have highly motivated JLP councillors and mayors, supported in the most discreet and efficient manner by the PNP Minister of Local Government, Mrs. Portia Simpson Miller, and held to account by Opposition Leader Mr. Edward Seaga.
It's perfectly true that they are routinely given inadequate financing, because an insensate central government controls, or rather has failed to control, the public purse. Nevertheless there is less vending on the sidewalks in downtown Kingston, and more money was made all around last Christmas in the arcades provided. A significant improvement in public well-being has been therefore achieved, without the necessity for wasteful financial deals and a raft of political advisers. Under this new approach, Parish Councillors have been expected to perform and have been doing so.
WINNING COMBINATION
The Mayor of Kingston and the Minister of Local Government are a winning combination. Both give value for money. So do Spanish Town Mayor Dr. Raymoth Notice, and Mandeville Deputy Mayor Mrs. Sally Porteous, among others. All Parish Councillors in the Parish Councils islandwide, are being paid for the first time, and each at about a million dollars annually. So why do we still need 60 Members of Parliament, much more 63?
What they should be doing is reducing the Cabinet, and therefore the number of government ministries. It is evident however, that neither the Most Honourable P. J. Patterson nor the Most Honourable Edward Seaga has any intention of doing so.
The number of constituencies should be reduced to 55. That means we would have five less MPs. Since none of this is personal, the parties can decide who will contest the next elections.
OBJECTIVE
The objective ought to be to have functioning Parish Councils islandwide and there is now hope that this is indeed possible. Once that is achieved we really only need one or two MPs for each parish, and three for the big ones. With the Parish Councillors and MPs working together the country would be much better served.
We cannot get out of deepening debt except by cutting public expenditure where it matters most. At the top, where it can have a ripple effect. Contrary to what the socialists and statists say, this is the only time when the benefits trickle down to the rest of the population. Taxpayers already desperately in need of work and a decent income, would have a dramatically lighter burden of taxation to bear once the Cabinet and MPs are cut, and the ministries merged.
It would be a gross dereliction of duty for the EAC to make any other recommendation to Parliament. All the more when, as Danville Walker EAC Director of Elections said, "By convention over the last 20 years, anything that the EAC has recommended (to Parliament) has been adopted."
On that basis alone the EAC has a duty to the country to make sense, and to do the right thing.
