Earl Moxam, Senior Gleaner Writer

An intense debate last Friday provided the occasion for several new members of the Senate to make their maiden presentations in the Upper House.

It was the 'hot-button' Trafigura issue that was at the centre of the debate and, as the new members were to find out, their seniors were not prepared to give them an easy pass, notwithstanding this being their first time.

The Trafigura issue came courtesy of a motion seeking the Senate's approval of a Ministerial Order permitting investigators from The Netherlands to come to Jamaica to conduct inquiries into allegations that the Dutch oil trading company, Trafigura Beheer, had bribed officials of the People's National Party (PNP).

The Government's case for the motion's approval was made by Senator Dorothy Lightbourne, the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General. Responses came from Senator A.J. Nicholson, the former Attorney-General and Justice Minister, as well as former Minister of National Security and Justice, K.D. Knight. They challenged the legitimacy of the Government's motives in seeking to invite Dutch involvement in a matter that had started out a year ago as a campaign finance issue here but was now part of a major criminal prosecution in the European country.

But the younger members of the Opposition party - Mark Golding, Sandrea Falconer and Basil Waite - also had assigned positions to articulate on the issue, as did their Government counterparts, Ronald Robinson and Dennis Meadows.

Bedrock principle

First up, Senator Golding, a lawyer by profession, focused on "the bedrock principle that the rule of law must be upheld". He used that premise for his argument that the then Opposition Jamaica Labour Party had collaborated with persons who had broken local laws by breaching bank-secrecy rules in order to provide the JLP with information on the Trafigura donation of $31 million to the PNP. Bank confidentiality was a breach of Jamaican law "and ought to be prosecuted" he argued.

Looking beyond the Trafigura issue, he suggested that such was the magnitude of some donations from certain powerful unnamed sources in the recent general election that the country was regressing from the 'one man-one vote' dispensation.

This elicited strong denouncements from the Government side. Senator Desmond McKenzie even suggested tongue in cheek that the young senator was "not the right Golding".

The 'leakers'

Senator Falconer picked up on the bank-secrecy theme as well, asserting that if any law was broken in the Trafigura affair, it certainly was in respect of those who leaked the information about the accounts into which the payments from the oil trading company had been lodged.

On the Government side, Dr. Ronald Robinson responded strongly to the Opposition's challenge on the bank-secrecy issue. He contended that "Jamaica is drowning in corruption", costing the country an estimated $60 billion annually. That, he claimed, was the primary issue, which, according to him, the Opposition was trying to avoid by introducing a "red herring".

He got robust support for the allegation of "pervasive corruption" in the society from his Government colleague, Dennis Meadows. Senator Meadows ran into trouble with the Opposition, however, when he suggested that Senator Nicholson was involved in a conflict of interest when, having the dual roles of Attorney-General and Legal Adviser to the PNP, he offered the party advice on how to handle the Trafigura issue.

Senator Knight jumped to his feet and charged that the member was "imputing improper motives" to another member, in breach of the Standing Orders. Not content to remain entirely out of the fray, Senator Nicholson muttered, "Yu think yu on the political platform?"

Basil Waite, the third first-time Opposition member to speak, conceded that "there is a perception of corruption in Jamaican politics". It was the duty of his generation of politicians, he said, to get rid of the corruption.

He was equally adamant, however, on the need to "eliminate hypocrisy as well!" He accused the Government of being on a witch hunt in the interest of political expediency. On that note, he called on all political parties to open their books for public scrutiny to demonstrate that they were serious about eliminating corruption and influence-peddling in the political process.

At the end of the sitting, Senate President, Dr. Oswald Harding, made it clear that he was far from impressed by the tone of the presentations of the young senators. He said they should look to the contributions of their elders for guidance on their future actions in the more conservative Upper House.