Numerous Mechanisms in Place to Hold Ministers and MPs Accountable

Minister without Portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister, with responsibility for Information, Hon. Robert Morgan, says there are numerous mechanisms in place that hold Cabinet Ministers and Members of Parliament (MPs) accountable.

These mechanisms have been agreed to, both internationally and locally.

“There is this misconception that Cabinet Ministers and Members of Parliament are not held accountable; that is patently not true. The first level of accountability that I, as a Member of Parliament, have to acquiesce to is accountability to the people who vote for us, and those who even didn’t vote for us in our constituencies,” the Minister said.

“There have been many cases where MPs who did not perform in strongholds of political parties were voted out by constituents, so this narrative that we see emerging that we were never held accountable for anything is not correct,” he added.

Minister Morgan made the assertion during today’s (May 24) post-Cabinet press briefing at Jamaica House in St. Andrew.

“The second point I want to make… is there are numerous mechanisms in Government that hold politicians accountable. You have the Integrity Commission, which holds us accountable financially in terms of assets and liabilities and whether we are illicitly benefiting. You have the FID and MOCA which have been strengthened by this Administration,” Mr. Morgan said.

He noted, too, that Parliamentarians have to give account of their stewardship during Parliamentary Committee sessions.

“You have the budgetary process, and people may not remember but every single Minister has to attend Standing Finance Committee every year and questions are asked by our Opposition colleagues and others about what we did in our Ministry, why wasn’t this project executed, and this is all public,” the Minister said.

“You also have international agreements that we have signed that hold us accountable. You have the Open Government Partnership Process. So, in the whole conversation that we are having, there seems to be a lot of miscommunication and disinformation essentially trying to say that Jamaican politicians are the only people in government who are not accountable to anything,” he said.

Explaining the Open Government Partnership Process (OGP), Minister of Finance and the Public Service, Dr. the Hon. Nigel Clarke, said the Government and civil society co-create two-year action plans, with concrete goals that should be accomplished.

“Out of the OGP process, what happens is that the Government interfaces with civil society, with NGOs and other groups. NGOs propose policy changes that they would like to see implemented,” he pointed out.

“We had that process… and out of that, a national action plan was developed, and that plan has a two- to three-year horizon and the Government publishes that national action plan and is then held to account to achieve it.

We are in our first cycle of the implementation of this national action plan and we believe that for the second and future cycles, this is certainly a mechanism for us to deepen governance in Jamaica and to deepen transparency in Jamaica,” the Minister said.

Dr. Clarke said the Government is modernising governance in Jamaica “and taking on initiatives and measures that Jamaica has not previously undertaken, and it builds layers of accountability in our society for which the people of Jamaica are the ultimate beneficiaries”.

Additionally, Minister Morgan further noted that the increase in Parliamentary salaries was not a matter that came on the Cabinet’s agenda for discussion and decision.

“It was an automatic pegging that has been happening for over 30 years, and I think… there seems to be in the whole conversation some attempt to ignore the facts that have been presented by us,” he said.