THE EDITOR, Madam:
KINDLY ALLOW me to lend my support to the well-reasoned arguments of Rev. Webster Edwards against the call for Senators to be paid.
It is a very strange irony that those who are defending the payment of a salary to Senators are themselves the beneficiaries directly and/or indirectly of the voluntary service of very many Jamaicans. I find it even more astounding that one of the persons reported to be supporting this call is the Minister of Education, Senator Burchell Whiteman. This is so because Senator Whiteman is a Minister of the Government which has called upon the Jamaican people (and rightly so) to reclaim the core values and attitudes which have sustained (and continue to sustain) the social fabric of this nation.
In my humble estimation, voluntary service to one's fellow human beings must be considered, therefore, as one of these core values and attitudes. Thus, Senator Whiteman's reported solidarity with the proposal for Senators to be paid appears to be at odds with the position of the Government of which he is an integral part.
Moreover, this Government or any Government is obliged to encourage the citizens to offer voluntary service precisely because the myriad of tasks to be undertaken for the progress and well being of the majority of the people cannot be accomplished exclusively by means of paid services.
Like Rev. Edwards, I am of the view that this call for the payment of a salary to Senators is conveying a dangerous message to the nation as a whole. First of all, this posture serves to undermine the work of institutions that depend to a very significant extent on the efforts of volunteers. Secondly and most importantly, what kind of message is being sent when people of adequate means are requesting payment for every public duty they perform at the same time that people of modest means (or no means at all) are exhorted to bear more and more burden and to make greater sacrifices in order to improve their socio-economic status?
It reminds me of the passage of sacred scriptures where our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ spoke to His disciples about the Pharisees as follows: "... For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers..." St. Matthew 23.4).
A person to whom the privilege has been given to serve in the public office of a Senator should be reminded that it is written: "For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required, and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more" (St. Luke 12:48). So shall it be done.
In conclusion, therefore, those who are unable and unwilling to offer their service in the Senate on a voluntary basis should graciously step aside and be replaced by those who are so willing and able. Hence the call for a payment of a salary to Senators should be ignored.
Finally, I salute wholeheartedly the endeavours of hundreds of thousands of my fellow Jamaican citizens who have offered, and continue to offer voluntary service. May God bless them all.
I am, etc.,
REV. FR. WOLDE DAWITT
Administrator/Priest-in-Charge
Ethiopian Orthodox Church
P.O. Box 296
Kingston 11
