Dear Mr Editor,
The recent fiasco in the House of Assembly was perpetuated by the unseemly performance of the Speaker, I suspect allegedly aimed at satisfying the interests of her benefactor, the Chief Minister. First she failed to properly notify one significant member of the opposition about the “emergency” meeting, and the two other members only the day before the meeting was to be held – hardly acceptable notification.
Then, during the meeting, she ignored the fact that, with only four House of Assembly members present, there clearly was not a quorum, and proceeded call for votes from only the four government members present on three pending bills. She did this even after the attorney general, the deputy governor, and Deputy Speaker had allegedly given her a note identifying the lack of a quorum and stating they were leaving, as indeed they did.
As for the role of the Governor, Christian Scott, in all of this, she is to be commended for being so actively involved in community events, important in terms of public relations, which her predecessor and his wife generally ignored. But for her to have accepted the House votes as being legal, after written objection by the opposition, was unfortunate and misguided. To be sure, nobody stood up to verbally identify the obvious lack of a quorum, but would not a written note have satisfied this absurd requirement?
Moreover, the good Governor ignored the fact that the Speaker had allegedly failed to properly notify members of the opposition about this meeting in timely fashion, and not at all in one instance. Was this done “legally”? One can only wonder if the Governor was more concerned about incurring the wrath of the ever volatile Chief Minister rather than in good governance.
Jerome Roberts, who seems so proud to be affiliated closely with Hubert Hughes, to the point of being obsequious, when asked why he did not speak up at the House meeting about the lack of a quorum, replied that he was a member of the government and it was not in his best interests to have spoken about it, meaning, of course, that regardless of what is good for the democratic process, he had to do what his benefactor, the Chief Minister, expected him to do – namely say nothing.
Roberts won election as an APP candidate, but as soon as Hubert took control of the government, Roberts quickly jumped on to his bandwagon, expecting of course rewards for doing so, which Hubert subsequently provided to him. But he will now be running as a AUM candidate in the next election, closely affiliated with Hubert Hughes, and let us hope that voters in his district will recognize how much of an alleged opportunist he has shown himself to be.
A Concerned Citizen
