The Tribune

By Syann Thompson

Tribune Staff Reporter

sthompson@tribunemedia.net

ANGLICAN Archdeacon Father James Palacious told parliamentarians that they need to stop their “slackness” when it comes to adhering to the Public Disclosure Act.

During the first parliamentary church service for 2020 at Christ Church Cathedral yesterday, Father James Palacious in his sermon gave a mixture of rebuke and praise to elected officials. He told them the public expects representatives to follow requirements of the Public Disclosure Act, which, among other measures, requires parliamentarians to disclose their assets, income and liabilities annually to the Public Disclosure Commission. 

“Of course as you pass legislation, we expect parliamentarians to obey the legislation that they themselves (pass). What is my child going to think, what are your children going to think when the prime minister or others keep saying ‘we are waiting for this or we waiting for certain people’? Come on, the law is very clear, if you want to invoke the provisions of the Westminster system, let’s invoke it straight across the board. We need compliance of the Members of Parliament, it’s as simple as that. See this kind of slackness really needs to stop. I repeat, it undermines people’s confidence in good governance,” said Father Palacious.

He continued, “As for the public, don’t act as if I don’t have the right to challenge you, I have 100,000 reasons. I have 28,000 for MPs and 66,000 for ministers. I have 94,000 reasons to challenge you. All I am saying is, let’s try to get it right. . .”

Father Palacious also reminded parliamentarians that aside from pastors, they are the most “vilified and demonised” group of people carrying out a “thankless” job.

“I honestly believe that we give our political leaders too bad a rap and just believe that everybody or the vast majority of people go there to enrich themselves,” the religious figure said. “Let me say categorically, I don’t buy that narrative. I don’t propagate it and I try to talk people out of saying that for several reasons, the fact that it isn’t true. The fact is there are some who enter to do good and end up doing well. But apart from the few, many of you and your predecessors sat here, elsewhere and you served at great financial and other sacrifices to yourselves and your families. That having been said, I’m not going to let you off the hook.”

He highlighted the recently reported increases in per diem for government ministers and their spouses. The updated travel policy introduced increased per diem for ministers, additional trips for ministers’ spouses and per diem and membership to the American Airlines Admiral’s Club for access to first class lounges. For domestic travel, per diem for ministers was increased from $80 to $100 and from $150 to $250 for international travel.

Father Palacious said that he is not against it, but that the average person would have a different perspective.

“With respect to the current debate on per diem, I personally don’t have a problem with ministers taking their spouses twice per year. I don’t have a problem with that. Now, of course, again in this kind of atmosphere do people have a right to be upset about that, yes. Now you might just be disclosing something that has been happening for years. But all I am saying is that we need to be able to say that and the $250 per diem, I know I do some travelling not for the church but for another organisation, that’s not overboard but again we have to accept that for some people they don’t make $250 per week. So for you to be talking about $250 per day, they can’t comprehend that, that does not make any sense to them and they have a right to be upset, whether you like it or not because as  far as they are concerned you are being overpaid,” said Father Palacious.