The Opposition is ill-prepared for government

Editor: Last month’s absence of the Opposition members at the sitting of Parliament, once again shows us how ill-prepared this hapless bunch are for government. With nearly two dozen times absent from these sessions, we the people do not have a balanced mechanism to deal with our business.{{more}}

It is the right of the people to have representation from those individuals who have been elected to serve. To do otherwise is to deny the citizenry the equity accorded to us under the “Representation of the Peoples Act.” The belligerent act of constantly abandoning Parliament is not in the interest of the people and hardly constitutes a punitive measure against the Government.

The Parliament has always been the platform from which our leaders launch their most vitriolic political rhetoric. They don’t walk away from the opportunity; they embrace it. Parliamentary time constraints were introduced after a marathon two-day debate by James Mitchell back in the eighties. It’s what Cato did. It’s what Joshua did.

We are yet to have a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee, chaired by the Leader of the Opposition, after 14 years. This important committee allows for scrutiny of the people’s money and the way it is being spent. These are not trivial matters, but important national issues.

Lazy people in opposition will be lazy people in government.

Andrew Prince