GOVERNMENT SENATOR Dennis Meadows wants legislation to be enacted to govern the management of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF).

His opposition colleague, Basil Waite, however, is pressing for greater transparency and accountability in how the CDF is used.

The opposition senator yesterday questioned why the CDF parlia-mentary committee held its meetings in camera. "Why is it that when the CDF committee is meeting in Parliament the press is not allowed to view on behalf of the nation the proceedings of the fund?" Waite queried during a debate on a CDF resolution in the Senate.

He argued that if the Government was serious about transparency and accountability, the media should be allowed to cover the sittings of this committee.

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However, Meadows, who moved the resolution, said the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) managed and disbursed the fund. He said that the CDF unit, which operated out of the OPM, carried out its duties with a high level of transparency.

Taking aim at a Gleaner editorial headlined 'Let the CDF trough go', Senator Meadows said before "we consign the CDF to the graveyard", a careful examination should be done of how the funds had operated since its implementation last year.

"If this is a trough, I see it as not a political trough, but a developmental trough for the people at the constituency level," he asserted.

Despite the Bruce Golding administration's commitment to the maintenance of the CDF, Senator Waite questioned its sustainability.

He said there was nothing to guarantee the sustainability of the fund since it was dependent on the warrant from the Ministry of Finance.

The first Supplementary Estimates of expenditure tabled in Parliament on Tuesday showed a 50 per cent cut in the CDF allocation to MPs. They will now have $20 million to spend on projects in their constituencies this fiscal year.