WE ARE disappointed that what passes for a debate on the national budget has degenerated into something that is not. What should be a discussion about the management of the country's fiscal affairs has become an occasion for party
political grandstanding. The presentations appear to be focused more on style than on substance.
Rather than presenting positions and replying to them, as one expects in a debate, we are offered budget 'speeches' that are often rambling and disjointed, dealing with matters that are often peripheral to the budget.
What is required is a presentation from the Finance Minister about the Government's intended expenditure for the financial year and on what the money will be spent, followed by a plan for the financing of this expenditure.
The Opposition then replies to that presentation, critically analysing the Government's proposals, offering its own proposals about what should be done. Then follows a defence of these positions, which could include concessions to each other's statements.
We are treated instead to a virtual abuse of the nation's productive time, with presenters for both the Government and the Opposition seeming to believe - mistakenly - that this is a chance to sway hundreds of thousands of undecided voters who are fixed to their television and radio receivers.
Hard-working Jamaicans do not deserve to be offered what is effectively an abuse of parliamentary privilege by the speakers in the debate. The change in the early '70s from a marathon discourse involving practically every member of the House to a concise debate of limited duration may have gone off track. What is more, the Standing Orders rule forbidding the reading of written speeches is now routinely ignored. The abuse of the occasion becomes more painful when it degenerates into shouting incoherence and finger-wagging from those who should be presenting themselves with a level of decorum befitting of the people's representatives.
The structure and management of Jamaica's fiscal affairs is relatively uncomplicated. The accounting for this should not take several hours to be explained by anyone on the Government side and to be examined and countered by anyone of the Opposition's representatives.
What is required by Jamaicans from our parliamentarians is enlightened debate on the affairs of the country. The nation does not deserve to be treated to rowdy, obfuscating presentations that more resemble an unsupervised third-form discussion, with a theme and an objective being nothing more than bombast and party political profiling.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
