THE row over the proposed Chinese investment in the Goat Islands has become the major issue in Parliament, and has now seeped into at least one committee of the House of Representatives -- the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC).
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| PHILLIPS (right) and DALEY ... both believe that there is a political agenda |
For the past two weeks the question of whether or not the PAAC should invite the Jamaica Environmental Trust (JET), and other stakeholders in the proposed project, to its meeting has dominated issues before the committee.
The members spent more than an hour deliberating on the matter last Thursday, before dealing with the First Supplementary Estimates 2013/14, while public servants invited to the meeting waited in the lobby.
Two weeks ago, members of committee agreed that there was no problem in accepting a request from JET to make a presentation on the environmental issues surrounding the proposed Goat Islands project. In addition, former Minister of Transport and Works, Opposition MP Mike Henry wants the committee to invite other stakeholders, as well, including the Port Authority of Jamaica (PAJ), to answer questions similar to those being sought by JET from the Government.
Government members had no problem with JET being invited to make a presentation, but felt that the issue was not important enough to be included in the current agenda.
Chairman of the committee Edmund Bartlett, on the other hand, thinks that it is important enough to warrant urgent attention from the committee.
On Thursday, as the committee went over the minutes of the previous meeting, the issue arose again, after Henry sought clarification on whether the PAJ would be asked to provide the answers to his questions. The Opposition MP is insisting that there is information which the Port Authority has, based on its discussions with China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) on the project, which should be disclosed to the committee. more
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