Do necessary research before coming to Parliament – Senator Thomas

Senator Jomo Thomas has expressed dissatisfaction with some of the presentations that were made during the last sitting of Parliament.

On June 2, members of Parliament passed a motion on the state of reparations effort in St Vincent and the Grenadines. The motion had been moved by Thomas, and seconded by Senator Luke Browne in Parliament on May 29.{{more}}

During his wrap-up of the debate on Monday, Thomas opined that some presentations on the opposition side lacked an “intellectual understanding” of the matter at hand.

“When we listen to some of the presentations, Mr Speaker, honourable members, it is evident that we had not paid the amount of attention that was necessary to put together an intellectual understanding of the serious issue which confront us. I think that on a matter of gravity that we are dealing with, particularly in a small underdeveloped country like ours, we cannot just flippantly the night before, look at the document and come into the parliament of St Vincent and the Grenadines and present in ways that don’t advance the cause,” he said.

The senator, who is also the head of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Reparations Committee, pointed out that persons often see things only in a political light. He added that this may be the reason that no advancement in causes are made.

Furthermore, Thomas encouraged his fellow parliamentarians to take their roles seriously by doing the necessary research before coming to a sitting in the House of Assembly.

“I want to implore the members of this parliament; today we are talking reparations, tomorrow we will be talking national development, and budget and other issues of underdevelopment – how do we restore our country and I want to implore us to do the kind of study,” he said.

“I hear sometimes, people laugh jokingly about what happens in other parliaments. In Britain, they can play the fool. In Taiwan, they can throw shoes and things around because they have a lot of money. We don’t, so we have to find ways in which we study these issues so that when we come to this parliament, the people who elected us, the people who nominated us, the people who look to us for guidance and leadership will be proud to say ‘yea, these are the men and women that I elected and put to lead the country’.”

While Thomas acknowledged that he was not in agreement with some of the points made by opposition senator, Linton Lewis, he commended Lewis for his presentation.

“It is evident that he spent some time thinking and addressing the issue,” Thomas said.

The private members’ motion on the state of reparations effort in St Vincent and the Grenadines was passed with all eleven members on the government side voting in support of the motion. However, the eight opposition members declined to vote on the motion, although most of them indicated their support for reparations during their contribution to the debate. (BK)