The appointment of liaison officers for backbench Members of Parliament is necessary due to the peculiar circumstances in which the Government finds itself, says Deputy Prime Minister Santia Bradshaw.
Independent Senator Monique Taitt raised the matter last week during debate on the Appropriation Bill, 2023, in the Senate, saying these officers would be required to “do things like attend funerals, go to site meetings, go to house fires and things like that”. The cost is in excess of $800 000.
“It’s necessary because we have 30 MPs (Members of Parliament) and the ministers are entitled to personal assistants and constituency assistants [while the backbenchers are not],” Bradshaw said.
“When you have 16 or 18 seats, the volume of work is not the same, but in an environment with 30 seats, everyone is coming for them and they don’t have any support system. This will allow them to function better,” she added. (Nation News)
