Welcome to the JSCs

THANKS to the open sittings of the Joint Select Committees of Parliament, our citizens are now getting a revealing insight into the operations of a cross section of the country’s government. The JSCs, a legacy of former Attorney General Ramesh Maharaj, constitutes a system by which parliament is now able to scrutinise the functioning of the executive and so ensure a greater measure of transparency and accountability from those who conduct the country’s affairs. As we see it, the work of the JSCs is emerging as a refreshing development in the practice of our democracy and our sincere hope is that these committees would be given all the manpower and facilities they need to effectively fulfil their crucial responsibilities.

After all their earnest rhetoric about good and transparent governance, we would have thought that Prime Minister Manning and his administration would have welcomed the introduction of the JSCs and would have pledged their fullest support for the system which had been operating at Westminster since 1979, having been copied from the committees of the United States Congress. Surprisingly, however, the JSCs have come under attack from Industry Minister Ken Valley, Leader of Government Business in the House, who has described them as a “gimmick” and a “sham.” It seems, in fact, that if the Government had its way, the JSCs would promptly disappear as Mr Valley considers the country’s Parliament too small to have five joint select committees. As against that purely technical and unacceptable reason, there may be another which appears to us more likely — that the Government finds such parliamentary scrutiny uncomfortable if not quite irksome and would prefer to do without it.

In any event, the Government’s stand against the JSCs will do nothing to boost public confidence in its operations. Like the administration of justice, efficiency and integrity in government must not only be practised but must also be seen to be practised and, as far as we see it, the deliberations of the JSCs are a tried and trusted means of ensuring that this principle is upheld. To put it another way, the Government cannot be so self-righteous, so oblivious to the rights of citizens, to believe that its actions and conduct are beyond such open scrutiny. For example, would the Government have volunteered the information extracted on Thursday by one JSC from the Solid Waste Management Company regarding the financial operations of CEPEP? As a result, questions must now be raised about the value, usefulness and purpose of this programme on which $92 million was spent in just over six months, with $51 million going to pay the wages of 6,000 workers while 110 contractors collected $26 million.

In seeking to justify these payments, SWMCOL chairman Ray Braithwaite claimed that the money received by contractors included the cost of “administration, operations and the purchase of equipment.” Having elicited this information, we expect the JSC to now demand from Solid Waste an itemised accounting by these CEPEP contractors since it seems necessary to determine where they carry out their “administration,” what do their “operations” consist of and what exactly is the “eqipment” they are required to purchase. Who, in fact, are these “contractors” and what links do they have with the ruling party? If 110 contractors receive $26 million in six months, on an average each would collect $236,000, which would amount to $472,000 a year. With that kind of income, how soon, we wonder, would they become millionaires? That is, if some haven’t achieved that status as yet. No Mr Valley. In the public interest, let the JSCs perform.