Golding had strong grounds to question Speaker's performance, says commentator

By Kimone Witter    

 

Political commentator Lloyd B. Smith says Opposition Leader Mark Golding had strong grounds on which to raise the concern about the performance of Speaker of the House Juliet Holness during his Budget Debate presentation on Tuesday.

 

But Mr. Smith also believes the timing of the comments, based on circumstantial evidence, could be seen as distasteful.

 

While speaking about transparency and accountability to good governance, Mr. Golding noted that having a head of Parliament who is the spouse of the head of Government "does not sit well with the tradition that the Speaker must act independently of the government of the day".

 

This triggered an unprecedented walkout of government members, led by Prime Minister Andrew Holness, leaving the Parliament without a quorum.

 

In an interview with Radio Jamaica News, Mr. Smith said the move by the government side was regrettable and did not help the country's image. 

 

"I think there should have been some other way that the prime minister, after all, he has his own presentation coming up and he could have then dealt with the matter in a more gentlemanly way. But I just thought that his rushing to leave the Parliament in disgust was a bit churlish and not becoming of a prime minister. You know, he ought to have shown a the level of self-control," said the commentator.

 

According to Mr. Smith, the Opposition Leader "didn't say anything that was false or untrue". 

 

"The point has to be made, that all the points that he made regarding the speaker were in fact correct in most instances, if not in all instances. The fact that he drew the correlation between her being his wife and therefore the head of Parliament versus the head of government, are, shall we say entangled, yes, that could have been embarrassing in any situation, whether in or outside of Parliament. And I don't know if there was a more subtle way that Mr. Golding perhaps could have handled that."

 

Mr. Smith said government members should instead have remained in the House and responded to Mr. Golding's statements. 

 

 

The political commentator suggested that the Opposition Leader's budget debate presentation, for the most part, was a refreshing departure from the usual contentious approach taken by his predecessors.

 

"He delved into a number of very salient points relating to the question of how best to ensure that what he terms the trickle-down economics practice by the JLP could be reversed and thus move the country away from a low-tech, low-wage, low productivity environment. And I thought that was a very nice point of departure and augurs well for the country if some of those points are taken on by the government and should his party become the government, to pursue them." 

 

But Mr. Smith said he was disappointed that Mr. Golding did not explain how his ambitious programmes would have been funded within the constraints of Jamaica's economic realities.