Portia Simpson Miller and Everald Warmington

SOUTH WEST St Catherine Member of Parliament (MP) Everald Warmington has signalled that he wants to be headboy of the 'naughty corner' in the House of Representatives.

Throughout the nearly 40 hours of deliberations over the estimates of expenditure for the 2008-2009 fiscal year, Warmington made no attempt to disguise his bad behaviour. This prompted his cousin, Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller, to appeal to him to "stop disgracing the family".

This was after Warmington, the state minister in the Ministry of Water and Housing ignored the conventions of the Standing Finance Committee and refused to partner his senior minister in examining the allocations to the ministry.

The head trio

When examination of a ministry is taking place, the minister sits in the centre of the chamber and is flanked by his junior minister and permanent secretary. Technocrats from the ministry and related agencies sit behind the head trio.

On Thursday, however, when Minister of Water and Housing Dr Horace Chang and his team sat for the examination of the estimates, Warmington refused to join them. Members of the House beckoned and shouted to the junior minister to take his seat, but he flatly responded: "I not going there. (If) mi caan talk here suh, mi caan talk deh suh."

Only senior ministers are allowed to speak on the policy and spending of ministries during examination.

Warmington's refusal to join his senior colleague was the climax of three days of misbehaviour by the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) member. He pulled a naughty one on deputy-chairman Marisa Darylple-Phillibert when she attempted to bring order to the room by utilising her gavel and saying "Members, I cannot hear myself."

Before she could finish, Warmington, whose favourite phrase seemed to be "Shut yuh mouth!", responded, "You don't need to hear!"

Warmington also turned on North Trelawny MP Dr Patrick Harris. On one occasion, when Harris was making a suggestion with regard to training nurses, Warmington sneered: "Why are you interested in nurses? You don't sterilise your equipment, so you don't need nurses."

No problem with heckling

Harris later told The Sunday Gleaner that he did not have a problem with heckling in Parliament as long as it was done with the decorum befitting the House.

"Without heckling, Parliament would be boring. There is room for it, but there is a line that you should not cross. Personal attacks should not be a part of heckling," Harris said.

Thursday evening, chairman of the Standing Finance Committee and Speaker of the House of Representatives Delroy Chuck appealed to MPs to control the heckling. He pointed out that the behaviour was reported by the electronic media.

Simpson Miller also requested of Chuck to "speak to the president of the heckling committee to behave".

Earlier this year, The Sunday Gleaner, with the benefit of Hansard and by observation, had listed Robert Montague and James Robertson as persons who would have been confined to the naughty corner had the Parliament been a classroom.

Dishonest

Last week, Montague ran into problems with Prime Minister Bruce Golding after comments he made in Parliament about Roger Clarke. Montague said that Clarke was dishonest in selling the idea to the country that a receipt-book programme to control praedial larceny would work. Clarke took offence to Montague's language and stormed out of the House. Golding insisted that Montague apologise for the statements after the member had defied the speakers request to do so.

Clarke told The Sunday Gleaner that rising inflation, and other factors affecting the quality of life being enjoyed by Jamaicans, must be the priority of the Parliament.

"At a time like this when we are in crisis, you can't even get up in Parliament to speak," Clarke said. "It is counterproductive. We have to sit down and discuss things in a rational way. What is happening in the country is not a thing that JLP can solve or PNP can solve. It is bigger than party; it calls for both sides to sit down and deal with the challenges," Clarke said.

The Central Westmoreland MP disclosed that on at least one occasion, a teacher had declined an invitation to bring students into the Parliament to observe the sitting.

"The teachers flatly refused because they did not want the children to come and see the sort of behaviour that is taking place in the highest court of the land," Clarke lamented.