Durrant Pate/Contributor

Prime Minister Andrew Holness led a walk-out of the parliamentary chamber this afternoon (March 19) during Opposition Leader Mark Golding’s contribution to the Budget Debate as he led a stinging broadside about the poor governance being delivered to the Jamaican people.

The situation went from bad to worse when acting House Speaker Heroy Clarke called for an adjournment of five minutes in order to summon government Members of Parliament (MPs) to return to the chamber, but with no success. At the end of seven minutes, Clarke decided to adjourn the sitting for the day.

The Opposition MPs remained in their seat, hoping that their party leader would be allowed to continue to complete his presentation, which the Government side was provided with a written copy. Interestingly at the time of the walk-out, Golding was about to touch on the failure to disclose the identity of the so-called “illicit six” MPs, who are under investigation by the Integrity Commission for illicit enrichment.

Unsettling presentation

During his presentation, it was clear that Golding’s message was unsettling to Government MPs, as he weighed in on the Government’s national expenditure programme, noting the increasingly low-trust environment particularly since the Holness government came to office in 2016.

Citing that no less than eight government ministers have been forced to resign or have otherwise been sanctioned for a range of serious breaches, Golding argued that no wonder Jamaica continues to rank poorly on international corruption indices.

He highlights that the move in 2020 to take away the chairmanship of most parliamentary committees from the Opposition has weakened that mechanism of holding the Government to account, pointing to the government’s manoeuvring to delay the tabling of reports from the Auditor-General and the Integrity Commission, saying this remains a contentious matter, especially since the legal opinion on which this delay is purportedly based, has been withheld from parliamentarians and the wider public.

Visibly upset

At this point, the mood on the Government bench was changing, as one could visibly see discomfort, particularly when the Opposition Leader began to express his discomfort with the Speaker of the House being the wife of the prime minister, suggesting that such a move is not in keeping with good governance principles.

Prior to the walk-out, Golding asserted: “When the former Speaker was forced to resign as a result of an Integrity Commission investigation, the move to replace her with the wife of the prime minister, so that the head of Parliament is now 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.”

At this point, the prime minister led the walk-out, showing clear signs of frustration with bantering taking place between members of both sides of the political aisle.