Education Minister Myron V. Walwyn wants a shift away from conversation of the Protocols for Effective Financial Management in the House of Assembly. Photo:VINO/File

During the budget debate held on December 18, 2012 in the Fifth Sitting of the Second Session of the Second House of Assembly, Hon. Walwyn said, “Madam Speaker we heard talk about the Protocols as well again. There are some people with their different views about the protocols, I have my views and I've espoused those views in the House before, but it’s time Madam Speaker to move on from that discussion.”

“It is time to shift the conversation,” he continued while explaining that the Protocols were already signed by Government and revealing that it was his belief that Government had already done the best that it could under the circumstances, based on the situation at the time in the country.

“They’re talking about fiscal cliff in the [United States], but we had our fiscal cliff Madam Speaker, and the only thing that we were doing now is to negotiate how we’re going to fall off the cliff,” Hon. Walwyn related.

The Hon. Minister felt that the Territory was in “good hands” with the signing of the Protocols and noted, “We fell in the laps of the Minister and the Premier”.

“It’s time now to shift the conversation from the Protocols and ‘we could have done this, we could have done that’,” he stressed.

Hon. Walwyn reminded the House that UK Minister responsible for Overseas Territories, Hon. Mark Simmonds MP, had declared that the Protocols would not be negotiated at this point.

The Education Minister further believed that Hon. Simmonds had ‘left it open’, which to Hon. Walwyn meant “as we show that we are responsible, as our finances improve, as we do things like we’re doing now with this budget and being more accountable, transparent, fiscally prudent; later down the road I’m sure, once the results are there that we can show that we have done what we needed to do the time will come for a discussion on the Protocols.”

He told the House that it was necessary to move on from a discussion and “turn our eyes on the economy”.

“How are we going to continue the growth in the economy that we are seeing over the last year or so?” Walwyn asked.

“Madam Speaker, things are improving, things are picking up, I am beginning to feel good… there is hope for this country because this Government is doing the things that we need to do to get the economy going,” he added.

During the budget debates, First District representative Hon. Andrew A. Fahie who had spoken before the Education Minister, made reference to the Protocols on several occasions and had previously said the budget and protocols were tied together.

“The Protocols state that these projects must come to the House for discussion, and I’m not seeing them coming to the House. Let’s have some intelligent debates over whether we could afford these projects or not, like the Protocols stipulates,” Hon. Fahie had said on the previous day.