Not An Ounce of Shame on Either Side | Editorial
By Kieron Murdoch | Opinion Contributor
We are still somewhat in disbelief at the events that transpired in the Lower House of Parliament on Wednesday, December 11th, 2024 leading to the conclusion of the debate on the 2025 national budget.
Sixteen grown-ass men and women began bickering like children over who should speak next, and when speakers on either side refused to do so, the debate was aborted when only 5 of the 16 MPs had contributed.
Sir Steardoy Benjamin, Sir Molwyn Joseph, Sir Robin Yearwood, Charles Fernandez, Chet Greene, Daryl Matthew, Anthony Smith, Trevor Walker, Sherfield Bowen, Algernon Watts and Kelvin Simon all sat in Parliament and refused to speak on the 2025 budget as part of an effort to win an extremely petty game of insisting who goes first. This is what Parliament has been reduced to in this country.
Not one of them should receive a salary for December. Not one. The contempt and disdain they have collectively displayed for the institution to which they were elected is unimaginable.
Where are we going as a nation when petty bullshit stands in the way of the effective management of national parliamentary proceedings? Is this how meaningless Parliament has become?
On what planet is this supposed to be good enough? You tell us. On what planet are we supposed to hold our heads up with pride and point to these conceited useless buffoons and say, “Those are our elected representatives,” who cannot manage to stow their childish egos long enough to get through an afternoon of discussion during what is supposed to be an important annual parliamentary feature.
How would we feel if we saw a headline emerge on an international news portal stating: “Antigua: Budget Debate Aborted as Govt and Opposition Argue Over Who Should Speak Next”.
Why are we content to allow those we entrusted to make laws, debate policy and represent our interests to pappyshow themselves and us in the process?
And while some amongst us are foolish and myopic enough to be pointing fingers at either side in support of their party, this is the 2nd year in a row that the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party and the United Progressive Party have forged a coalition of stupidity to abort the national budget debate in the Lower House on the basis that neither wishes to have the other set the order of who will speak when.
What we saw in Parliament last week was a total disgrace – Ministers of government content to say absolutely nothing about the previous year’s worth of spending, decisions, and projections for the future, and opposition MPs and so-called “Shadow Ministers” who have a year’s worth of policy to criticize but who are so daft and so inept that they feel they must wait for the relevant Minister to speak first, or else they cannot find anything to say, and would rather not speak at all.
These people are a disgrace to our nation. They bring nothing to the table. Nothing. Parliament has always been functionally handicapped due to the massive overlap of executive and legislative members and the small number of MPs overall.
The institution has many weaknesses, yes, but it still is the legislature, and is worthy of being treated with respect.
Instead, they sit quietly in Parliament collecting the people’s money for doing this type of utter bullshit, and then flock to their keyboards and radio stations with the most to say. It is beyond sickening at this point.
They neglect the duties of the offices to which they are sworn and spend time instead trying to one-up each other as if they were adolescents playing Call of Duty on a Saturday evening in one of their mother’s living rooms.
People need to make a connection between the unworthiness of the people they elect and the fact that as a nation, we remain underdeveloped, still grapple with severe poverty, and struggle to get efficient services from our public sector. Wednesday’s proceedings should be sufficient to demonstrate why we are unable to achieve faster progress as a nation.
About the writer:
Kieron Murdoch is an opinion contributor at antigua.news. He worked as a journalist and later as a radio presenter in Antigua and Barbuda for eight years, covering politics and governance especially. If you have an opinion on the issues raised in this editorial and you would like to submit a response by email to be considered for publication, please email [email protected].
About the author
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Comments (8)
AAB December 17, 2024, 8:18 PM
Unfaithful non-national December 17, 2024, 2:32 AM
Truth talking December 16, 2024, 5:21 PM
It was just a couple of years when the opposition walk out of parliament because of Alpha Nero and the government side still debated it and pass the acquisition of the vessel .
Why now they could do the same on something thet is much more important?
Faithful national #1 December 16, 2024, 12:17 PM
No Kieron, no Stone, there is no comparison here. They should both know by now that they are no match, at any level, for the Hon. PM. He gave them just the amount of rope they needed to hang themselves and, this time round, they did not disappoint.
Stone December 16, 2024, 11:16 AM
Don December 16, 2024, 11:04 AM
Antigua Surf December 16, 2024, 8:03 AM
True anu December 16, 2024, 7:46 AM
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