The Editor, Sir:

I am in complete agreement with your September 25 editorial regarding the CDF/SESP Funds. Please do go a step further and use your influence to have introduced a bill to make it illegal for members of parliament (MPs) to give anything other than service and representation to constituents, especially as there are government agencies in operation for just those purposes. We cannot set up structures and pay civil servants to provide a service to the vulnerable and then bypass them. This is another area where the wasting of our taxes is demonstrated.

If the departments are not operating efficiently, then MPs have to seek the improvements needed through pressure on the minister and via Parliament.

proper audit systems

Constituents should, therefore, be referred by the MP, to a properly functioning Poor Relief Department which is appropriately staffed and funded and has the proper audit systems in place to do the job or the sources of grants or loan funds. In that regard, MPs can help to complete the forms with the proper supporting documents needed, etc. That is one further function of the administrative support provided to MPs, to the tune of $700,000, my taxes.

We cannot continue to encourage the disorder already so pervasive in Jamaica, as this is where corruption thrives. Somebody needs to take the bull by the horns. Where best to start but at the top with our parliamentarians?

residency requirement

The bill should also clarify that direct provision of a material benefit to a single constituent (as an individual or as a distinct group within a constituency) is considered a bribe and a criminal matter. This matter of goodies being handed out by the MP (distinct from campaign material), is an absolute corruptive activity.

Further, the bill should introduce a residency requirement for MPs, as they would certainly be more accessible to constituents. Perhaps we shouldn't have the frequent cries of inability to find an MP after an election and maybe we would have fewer slums around when that happens.

I am, etc.,

JANET JOHNSON

HAUGHTON

jmjhau@hotmail.com