A ray of hope?

One of the most lucrative criminal practices in Jamaica and the greatest disincentive to commerce is the extortion racket. Yet for some strange reason neither the police nor the powers that be have exerted much energy to bring it under control. In fact, it has now become so pervasive that not only is it the norm in business districts in Kingston but it has spread like wildfire to May Pen, Mandeville and the northcosast.

The reason for its success is the overwhelming presence of corrupt police, for anyone operating in these business districts will tell you of regularly seeing thugs beating vendors , conductors and taximen into submission while the police turn their heads away or simply walk by. Why?

Because these corrupt police are on the payroll of the extortionists.

While there has been much exuberance expressed over the so-called success of the recent crime initiatives, I have remained very sceptical because of level of corruption in the police force.
I was therefore pleasantly surprised to see the story in the Star of Monday 28th June "Accused extortionists arrested". According to the report, two men were seen on Princess Street extorting money from vendors....." While this would have been a normal exercise in law abiding countries with a reasonably clean police force, such action is such an exception here that it was given page 3 treatment in the Star!

So does this mean that there is now going to be a new thrust by the police to deal with extortion? Will those gangster cops who are in league with extortionists be removed from the force? Will the police be sending undercover cops into commercial areas to observe the behaviour of the uniformed ones who are supposed to be patrolling these areas?

I am nor holding my breath but holding on to a little hope that maybe, just maybe, we are seeing the dawn of a new day.

Will Anything Change?

Now that Christoper Coke aka Dudus has been extradited , what will change as far as crime is concerned? I hate to be a cynic but apart from the authorities not allowing another self-governing enclave like Tivoli to re-emerge right now, has crime really been dealt a fatal blow?

Let's look at it ratationally, Dudus was supposed t0 be a JLP supporter/defender, but his kingdom emerged, grew and became independent under the PNP!

According to his school records, Dudus was a math genius and his business acumen seems to confirm that for he was obviously a great businessman first and a politician or political activist last. So under the PNP he got hundreds of millions of dollars worth of government contract. How come?It is my information that one of the first things Dudus did on his ascension to presidency of Tivooli was to make friends with his political enemies who operate in all the surrounding garrisons. Hence the success of Passa Passa. Senior politicians in the PNP also became his allies for since he was the Don of Dons, when they had problems with their local dons in their constituencies, who do you think they called on to discip0line them? Certainly not the Ghostbusters! So they owe him a LOT hence the contracts and I suspect many of them are shaking in their boots lest he makes a deal with the US law makers. So he was spoecial in that respect, but there are many other vicious ones ready to carve out their little niche.

So how will the crime situation really change?

In my book, it will get worse because we have a corrupt police force. For the lucrative extortion racket (the real money spinner) to be effective, people have to be beaten, threatened and even killed to make them understand that they have to give gangsters a set amount from their earnings every week.This applies equally to poor old ladies trying to eke out a living selling a few bananas on the sidewalks, public transport operators, wholesalers, manufacturers and retailers etc. This extortion racket is now well set in all the major towns, not Kingston alone but Mandeville, May Pen and Montego Bay too. The reason why it cannot be defeated is because corrupt police keep a watchful eye while the gangsters use brute force to convince all that they must pay, for the gangsters make sure that the police are on their payroll.

It is not that police really want the gangsters to control the extortion racket but because they are in uniform and have identification numbers, they cannot be up front so they make a pact. Their role therefore is to protect "their" extortionists, not only from the law but also from other extortionists who may wish to infringe on their territory.

So how can it change with the simple demise of Dudus? All it may mean is that there will not immediately be one Supreme don and no one will be allowed in the short run to make his area into a self governing enclave in Jamaica, but apart from that, until we have a clean or mostly clean police force, don't look for any real changes.

Big Dunn, Portland, Jamaica

What's the difference between riding and driving? As far as I am concerned, when you drive you rarely notice hills but when you ride the road appears to be nothing but a permanent uphill struggle. On Saturday 12th June, I was assuring someone that a ride from Agualta Vale in St. Mary to Bybrook in Portland was easy as it was relatively flat except for the hill going up to Bybrook. Well I am here to tell you that the road from Agualta Vale to Buff Bay in Portland, is full of hills, although it is part of the new northcoast highway. Problem is, when you drive, the roads are so smooth and wide you never ever notice the hills and even if you do, they never appear to be very challenging. This is a fact that I to my peril, keep ignoring as we head out to the country for our rides.

That's life anyway...full of challenges but lots of fun.

Yesterday we did have a lot of fun. We the less fit in the group, drove almost as far as Agualta Vale, while the super heroes, Alrick, Michael 1, Maurice, Barry, Howie and Damit rode from Kingston. While we passed the others on the road fairly close to Agualta Vale, Barry the racer was nowhere in sight until we got to the gas station where he was waiting patiently.

We rode out in the pouring rain and that was nice and cool, but by the time we got to Annotto Bay it was dry and the sun had started to make its presence felt. All in all it was a fairly decent ride to Buff Bay although all the once invisible hills came out of the woodwork. There we had breakfast, Charles having used his police contacts to arrange it.

What would a ride in the country be without a spectacular spill? Well we were not disappointed as a young man from the area saw us riding and jumped on his bicycle to show off. . Just by the descent beside the Buff Bay cemetery, he was in his element going down the hill without hands when suddenly I saw the spill, or as we say, "im kin puppa lick" over his handle bars and landed in the middle of the road. When I got to him and asked if he was ok he said yes but I suspect he was hurting, but pride made him jump back on the bicycle and take off. He was lucky though for not much traffic was around but a car approached just as he was retrieving his bicycle and slippers out of the middle of the road. All is well that ends well but I suspect he wont be showing off on his bicycle for a while and certainly not near the cemetary for maybe is duppy pull him off! (lol).

Although I had hiked to Bybrook twice before, I had really forgotten how long and challenging the hill was and I had to get off my bicycle twice and push up the uphill. Not unexpectedly too, I ran out of water and when I got to the district and found a shop to buy some, I immediately parked my bicycle on Barry's bicycle rack and gave up riding for the rest of the day.

It was quite a challenge to find the waterfall which was our real destination. Both Howie and I who had been there before, ended up passing it. In fact, when you leave Bybrook and head towards the Blue and Jonkro Mountain range, the next village is Berwick Spring, but it is now inaccessible to cars as like so many areas in the range, the roads suffer from frequent breakaways. I was driving and passed our waterfall and actually reached the breakaway before reaslising we were lost. Anyway Maurice ( Jamaica's greatest guitarist since Ernie Ranglin!)was riding and heard the water gushing out of the hills and found it. We had to cross over the Mabess river to get to the area where there are three sections where the cool water from the Blue Mountains gush over humongous rocks and cascade into nice swimming holes below. Two of the swimming areas are so deep that they appear from the surface to be bottomless like Blue Hole which is also in Portland.

Maurice did not disappoint as he performed the spectacular feat of falling from pool number two over some serious rocks straight down to pool number one. Luckily he did not hurt himself too badly.

Then we headed to another waterfall that some local young men had shown Charles and Micheal Chuck. This fall is part of the Spanish River and is close to a district called Chepstowe which the local people call Stowe and the lovely area we went to is called Big Dunn. Lower down the river there is another nice swimming area called Little Dunn and we were told the property belongs to the Marley estate.

We had to walk quite a distance to get to the falls but it was a resonably easy walk and the path is strewn with apples which are really going to waste down there while we have to pay and arm and a leg for such fuits in Kingston. No wonder people say if you live in Portland you can't starve, for it is really a lush, beautiful and fruitful parish which remains our own relatively undiscovered Garden of Eden.

On a sad note, Winston Chin You, one of our members who always came along on the rides as a support driver, died on Monday 7th June. Walk good Chin You.

FOR MORE PHOTOGRAPHS SEE: http:www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/album.php?aid=220566&id=763366822

What a Wonderful Life

Now that the barriers have been broken down in West Kingston, it is plain to see what we have long suspected, that the vast majority of people there have been enjoying the great life without having ever to pay a cent for light or water and just a "smalls" for cable. Who do you think has been picking up the bills? We of course, for as Peter Phillips boasted some years ago while he was part of the cabinet running this country, if you play by the rules in this country, you shall surely be shafted.

Also, the government is planning to rehabilitate the homes damaged during the recent incursion. The million dollar question however is, who owns these homes? Have the residents every paid a cent to live in them? For most the houses in garrisons were built by successive governments and given free of cost to the supporters of whoever happened to be in power at the time. As a result, very few if any have ever made any contribution to the purchase or rental of these premises.....while the rest of us pay through our noses to subsidise their lifestyles and that of their dons.

This is not only prevalent in west Kingston but in the other eleven garrisons, nine of which are operated by the opposition party. This is now an opportune time for every single citizen in this country to be required to start contributing to their upkeep, unless they are destitute. We cannot continue this system where despicable politicians sit in Parliament looking holier than thou when the only work they have every done to become a legislator there is to ensure that the dons who control the garrisons remain strong , untouchable and capable of keeping free loaders happy so that they in return can carry on their bandoolo including stuffing ballot boxes on election day.


A full twenty percent of our so called legislators have no moral authority to be in the parliament. We all know who they are and it is about time we stop the hypocrisy of treating them as honourable until they clean up their act.

EXTORTION EVERYWHERE

Ever since the onslaught downtown , the issue of extortion has again been highlighted. However, it is not only goons downtown who use extra ordinary practices against the hapless citizens of the country, but also some utility companies. My recent dealings with the National Water Commission (NWC) has brought this forcefully back to mind. Since the water lock offs began in March 2010, my bills started showing increases in consumption of between 600% and 700%. 

Naturally, I immediately took the matter up with the proper authorities and being aware of the fact that the NWC, like vicious extortionist, sometimes uses strong arm methods such as locking off supplies thus endangering lives, (remember water is life!) to try and squeeze money from hapless consumers, I also informed the Offices of Utilities Commission (OUR) of the situation. Would you believe all that did not help for after getting a letter from Ms. Jennifer Wright, Manager – Business Support Services, in late May that the matter was being investigated and hearing nothing further despite a follow up email to the Consumer Affairs Commission, I arrived home just in time on Thursday 3rd June to see NWC officers armed with disconnection notice for my property. I have been informed by the Consumer Affairs Commission that this is a regular practice by the NWC.....in other words, just like the downtown extortionists who beat up little old ladies selling on the sidewalks, burglarize or set fire to your premises if you do not pay, the NWC will cut off your service to force you to pay for what they have not supplied, although the matter is supposedly under investigation. Today's financial Gleaner has an article entitled " Drought drains NWC revenue."

This is no doubt a strategy by their public relations department setting the stage to demand that taxpayers be called on to bail them out. I however maintain that the losses at the NWC are mainly due to staff incompetence, not drought. For example, is the department charged with recouping money from persons who illegally connect to the NWC, giving the organization value for money? What about the department being paid to fix leaks and breaks in the mains on a timely basis? Is that department performing up to the required standard? Then there is my bugbear, what really was the justification for in excess of half billion dollars being used to supposedly set up a new billing system? Exactly what is the company getting for that huge unwarranted expenditure ? Has it proven to be an asset or liability?

 I am also very curious as to why the very curious Contractor General has never seen it fit to look into that particular contract which comes over as being extremely exorbitant, but I guess that's a topic for another day. It seems to me that there needs to be a serious investigation into the operations at the National Water Commission for rather than they striving for efficiency and exercising more care before throwing large sums at questionable programmes, they are trying to take the easy way out.....extortion..

I hope the ministry of water and housing know they will be held fully responsible for the unsavoury revelations which must emerge in the near future when taxpayers are called on to once again write off a huge debt there, as happened some years ago when we were forced to hug up their four billion dollar debt. Yes extortion is rife in Jamaica but unfortunately, too many of us seem to want to continue feeding it by paying up instead of standing up.