DO THEY DESERVE A PENSION?

According to a recent report in the Jamaica Observer, a number of former politicians are living in virtual poverty as sickness and poor pensions make it impossible for them to meet their very basic obligations. 

 If that article was meant to cause us to feel sorry for our politicians, it hasn’t. For the simple fact is, we have too many reasons not to think very highly of politicians. The first has to do with their actions over the many of our indsependence, which have contributed to Jamaica becoming a murder capital in the world, if not the first in terms of the per capita murders committed, certainly among the top three. 

This is a direct spin-off from the actions of those politicians who in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and probably to some extent even now, armed poor, uneducated, inner city young men with guns to kill and intimidate their political opponents. Naturally, we have concluded that if politicians are willing to commit murder and arson and indeed ANYTHING (as the chairman of the Peoples National Party (PNP) said) to gain power, then the prize must indeed be great. 

The ANYTHING was again demonstrated recently with what has come to be known as the dual-citizenship issue. The amazing thing about Jamaican politicians also is their brazenness. This was so crassly demonstrated in parliament last week by Jamaica’s first female prime and current Leader do the Opposition Portia Simpson Miller. According to reports, Ms. Miller went to Parliament and declared "I have said to the country over and over that this side will not take power unless it is by way of the ballot.” This statement was made in reply to the Prime Minister’s accusation that the PNP was taking Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) members to court to try and get seats in parliament on the basis that some of those elected had dual citizenships with countries not allowed under the Constitution. (The strange thing is that while the PNP is challenging the illegibility of some JLP MP’s, they too have at least two members of parliament on their benches who would be disqualified on the same grounds!) However, while denying that the PNP was using the courts to foist person’s rejected by electors on them, Mrs. Simpson told a blatant lie. For that is what the case by the PNP via Abe Dabdoud had been all about.

 For readers will recall that in the first instance, the Chief Justice had ruled that Vaz was ineligible based on his dual citizenship but the seat should not be automatically turned over to the PNP but a by-election should be called. DABDOUD THEN WENT TO THE COURT OF APPEAL CONTENDING THAT THE SEAT SHOULD BE AWARDED TO HIM (THE PNP ) WITHOUT A BY-ELECTION!

How then could less than a week after the by-election, a big “Christian”, a former prime minister and current Leader Of the Opposition, have the gall to declare in parliament, "I have said to the country over and over that this side will not take power unless it is by way of the ballot?” I suppose I am being naive in expecting better since at her inauguration Portia said she would work to eliminate corruption, but less than 2 years later the party that she leads accepted $30 million from Trafigura, a company which was trying to have its contract renewed to lift oil from Nigeria, without being able to give a plausible explanation why Trafigura gave their party the $30 million in the period leading up to the general election of 2007!)

 Anyway we do not only get bad impressions about our politicians from how we see them operate as a lot of what happens in Jamaican politics is done under cover. However,their own colleagues fill the gaps, for when you listen to things they say on and off the platforms about their opponents, you would not be incorrect in concluding that there is no such thing as a decent Jamaican politician! Importantly too, it is because of the devious, corrupt and incompetent activities of our politicians why this well endowed paradise has become one of the most impoverished nations in the former West Indies, only being outdone by Guyana. Yes, I guess there have been honest, hardworking decent politicians. The problem is, we have no way of knowing which of the politicians that have actually been in office over the years were “decent" for the legacy they have left us since independence is so rotten. So forgive me if I can’t feel sorry for politicians and am even cynical about the report that some are living in poverty. In fact, in my mind,the real question is, do they deserve a pension at all?