Bruce Golding urges Jamaica to bring back impeachment bill…

Former Prime Minister Bruce Golding is calling for Parliament to take another look at impeachment legislation he tried to advance more than 15 years ago, saying “the existing accountability framework needs to be strengthened”.

Golding raised the issue on Wednesday during an interview with Irwin Clare on Irie Jam, a radio station based in New York City. His remarks followed days of public discussion sparked by his recent statement that Jamaican public officials do not “instinctively” accept oversight and monitoring.

In 2011, when Golding was prime minister, he placed before the House of Representatives an impeachment bill designed to create a constitutional process for sanctioning public officials, including parliamentarians, who breached conduct rules or were involved in grave misconduct. The proposed law would have allowed for discipline, censure or removal.

That bill did not reach debate stage. It was later dropped from the parliamentary timetable after Golding's Jamaica Labour Party administration lost the general election held that year.

A wider version of an impeachment bill was later introduced in 2021 by current Opposition Leader Mark Golding. That proposal also lapsed last September, when the five-year parliamentary term came to an end.

During the 43-minute Irie Jam interview, Bruce Golding was asked to name one change that would most strengthen governance and accountability in Jamaica while helping to rebuild public trust.

“When I was in office, I took to Parliament a bill to facilitate the impeachment of public officials. Not just elected officials like MPs (members of parliament), but people in the public service,” he said.

“I wasn’t able to get that passed, and although that was a commitment that [Prime Minister Dr] Andrew [Holness] had given, I think during the 2016 general election campaign, that still has not been done. So that’s one important thing,” Golding added.

The former JLP leader also stood by his earlier comments about the reluctance of Jamaican officials to welcome scrutiny. Golding, who has spent more than 50 years in public service, said accountability can be “discomforting” because officials often have to spend time preparing reports and responding to questions, and “some of them consider this to be a nuisance”.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean that they are thieving, you know. They may be doing their job and just figure that, you know, ‘I’ll be able to do my job so much better if a didn’t have to spend so much time answering these questions and accounting …’,” he said.

However, Golding said public officials have no choice but to account for how state resources are used. “The fact of the matter is we are not running our personal bank account. We are dealing with taxpayers’ money, and systems are put in place to ensure that taxpayers’ money is properly spent and properly reported on and accounted for,” he said.

“It may cause discomfort, it may cause you to divert from other things that you want to do, but there is no alternative to that. We can’t just draw a cheque and sign it, but we don’t put no money on it and say, ‘Well, go and spend what you want and spend it however you want’.”

Golding said Jamaicans who fund government through taxes deserve confidence that “your money is being well-spent, and that’s what the accountability advocacy groups are seeking to achieve”.