Phillips hops off committee as Vaz blasts Golding’s transport solutions as reckless
Published:Wednesday | October 25, 2023 | 12:12 AMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
Transport Minister Daryl Vaz has called on his counterpart Opposition spokesman to discuss their differences after the latter took offence to comments made by the minister and announced he was withdrawing from the Transport Sector Committee on Tuesday.
Speaking at a political event on Sunday, Vaz rejected Opposition Leader Mark Golding’s rebuke of the phased 35 per cent fare increase as an attempt to “score cheap political points”, noting that Phillips, who was the Opposition’s representative on the committee, did not object to the increase.
He further said that Golding’s proposals to remove the hedge fund tax and cap the special consumption tax on fuel amid inflation to reduce the cost to the consumer were “reckless” and would pull the country back to the economic policies of the 1990s, which he suggested were harmful.
On Tuesday, Phillips issued a press release calling for Vaz to “withdraw his intemperate and ill-considered attack on the leader of the opposition ... for reaffirming known positions of the People’s National Party to make public transport more affordable for commuters and operators”.
He also announced his withdrawal from the committee, declaring he would not allow the minister to use his presence to mislead the public.
Vaz later called a press conference to address the issue.
“To me, this is a dark dark day that I could not let pass. I could not let tonight come and not address this issue frontally [so] that you can understand where we are, where we are going or where we don’t want to go,” Vaz said as he addressed journalists at the Ministry of Transport’s Maxfield Avenue headquarters in St Andrew.
“I am saying to my colleague transport spokesperson that I’m well aware, as a veteran politician, that some things are beyond your control, and with a leader-centric party system that we operate, what the leader says goes and what the leader wants goes, but I invite you to rethink your position,” Vaz said.
“Nothing has been said that cannot be discussed among big men, leaders of this country ... . Stand up so that we can continue to work together to get the successes that we so badly need, and should have had a long time ago with a cohesive, disciplined, orderly [and] respectful transportation system, specifically public transportation,” the minister said.
He described the situation as “a black eye to all attempts to get a non-partisan public transportation policy” for which “all hands [are needed] on deck to retake the streets of Jamaica”.