THE PEOPLE'S National Party (PNP) owes Jamaicans an apology. Their almost well-choreographed act of abandoning the people's Parliament without justifiable explanation is a shameful act.

Last Tuesday, several members of the Opposition People's National Party stayed away from the sitting of the House of Representatives.

There was no Portia Simpson Miller, the opposition leader and president of the PNP; no Peter Bunting, the party's general secretary; nor his deputy Luther Buchanan.

Robert Pickersgill, the party's chairman, was also missing from the House and so, too, were Dr Donald Rhodd, chairman of the PNP's Region Two, where the party is fighting to win a seat by way of a by-election, as well as senior party man Dr Peter Phillips.

Absence

So pronounced was the PNP's dismal attendance that government MPs joked that they would move a censure motion against Roger Clarke, one of two Opposition MPs who were in the House (the other was Derrick Kellier, the opposition House leader), when he clashed with Dr Christopher Tufton over the controversial importation of fertiliser which contained elements of human excreta.

Dr Omar Davies, Fitz Jackson, Lisa Hanna, Ronald Thwaites, Dr Wykeham McNeill, Anthony Hylton, Maxine Henry-Wilson, Sharon Hay-Webster, Dr Morais Guy, Michael Peart and Dean Peart merely passed though the House.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding's ambitious parliamentary agenda has been more rhetoric than reality.

Checks with Parliament records indicate that only West Hanover MP Ian Hayles and East Central St Catherine MP Natalie Neita Headley, who is overseas on parliamentary business, advised the clerk of the House of their absence. Everyone else, including a few government MPs, merely ignored their legislative duties for the day.

One wonders if the high stakes in the West Portland by-election motivated the absences or short stints the PNP had in the House.

Or perhaps it could be a well-planned protest against the governing Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) legislative agenda, that appears to be lacking in substance and direction.

Robust debates

The PNP could argue effectively that they missed nothing and that their constituents did not suffer from their absence from Parliament. Aside from the Sexual Offences Bill, debate on which was concluded last Tuesday, and the grandstanding which the fertiliser issue provided, nothing else took place in the House.

It has been a practice of the Government to pack the parliamentary sittings with questions and answers to questions.

While not discounting the importance of answering questions, especially in clarifying government projects and policies, the nation is cheated when our Parliament consistently avoids robust debates by ignoring motions that are on the Order Paper.

These are extraordinary times and one would hope that the parliamentary agenda could be set in such a way that members are made to dig deep, similar to the way a batting team would go about saving a Test match in the last hour of play.

Instead of skipping Parliament or barely going through the motions during sittings, we expect that Government and Opposition alike would stop talking about consensus and demonstrate that they fully understand what it means.

For all the talk of consensus, second reading has not yet taken place on anti-crime bills. The last time we heard, the PNP and JLP were meeting on them to iron out a few things, possibly make a few compromises, before taking it to the House. Well, the parliamentary year is almost over and the bills are seemingly languishing in File 13.

While Parliamentarians continue to waste time, for which they are being paid with taxpayers' money, the Order Paper is overflowing with motions, many of them critical to national development. These motions are in danger of not being debated anytime soon, as the parliamentary year speeds to an end.

And while our leaders procrastinate, turbulent world economic conditions continue to rip away the pockets of the haves and the have-nots.