I read with great interest a letter published in Tuesday, 5 June, edition of the Cayman Net News with the heading: CMA Annual Day of Prayer (An open letter to MLA Alfonso Wright).
The letter credited to the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. W. McKeeva Bush, expresses support for the Annual Day of Prayer to be held in the Legislative Assembly Building.
While I have no issue with the Leader of the Opposition expressing his personal support for this very important annual event being held in the precincts of the Legislative Assembly Building, I do have a major issue with the way he has tried to implicate me as the sole authority to decide whether or not it does happen.
The way the letter is presented one could easily come away believing that the decision to allow or deny the Ministers Association permission to hold the Annual Day of Prayer in the Legislative Assembly Building rest solely on my shoulders; that I, W. Alfonso Wright, am the one individual standing in the way of the Ministers Association conducting the event ever again in the Chamber.
I am the chairman of the House Committee, which has responsibility for granting permission for any events such as the Day of Prayer. Mr. Bush was quick to inform the general public that he is a member of the committee but deliberately omitted to indicate that I am the chairman of the committee. What is more interesting is that I did receive the same letter from Mr. Bush, but the letter that was left on my desk in the Legislative Assembly Building was correctly addressed to me as Chairman of the House Committee.
I ask you, the general public, why would Mr. Bush properly address the original letter he had placed on my desk and then have the same letter published as an open letter to W. Alfonso Wright?
If you conclude as I have, that this was intentionally orchestrated to malign my reputation and to embarrass me and the PPM; the continuation of a trend being carried out by a few detractors of the PPM Government.
Why did Mr. Bush not simply hand me the letter? We are both members of Parliament — the Government and Opposition has co-existed for years. Members on both sides have their differences but still exchange pleasantries with each other. I continue to be baffled and have to wonder if Mr. Bush’s personal dislike for me prevents him from getting that close to me to actually hand me a letter. What is it that Ms. Lucille Seymour and I have in common that seems to always aggravate Mr. Bush?
The practice that I found in place is that the Ministers Association will write to the Speaker requesting the use of the Legislative Assembly Building for the Annual Day of Prayer. Each year the Speaker will, in turn, pass the request on to the House Committee. To date, no letter has been received from the Ministers Association requesting use of the building for this year’s Annual Day of Prayer. I anticipate that we will soon receive the letter from the Association. When it does arrive, the Committee will consider it like it does every year. The decision is made by the Committee not MLA Alfonso Wright.
For the record I also support the Annual Day of Prayer being held in the Legislative Assembly Building. For the last two years I have even suggested to the immediate past president that a youth element needed to be added to the ceremony. I hope this serves to set the record straight and the discerning public can make up their own minds as to what is really going on and who’s playing politics as usual.
God Bless.
W. Alfonso Wright– Fourth Elected Member for George Town
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