The Corruption Problem

The best news this beleaguered nation has had for years, came via the Corruption Index which shows that corruption is finally on the decline in Jamaica. Because for years, corruption has been having a debilitating effect on this nation, robbing all of us of opportunities as the corrupt practices of a few has been slowly bankrupting the nation.

A decline from position 99 to 87....a 12 place drop in the corruption perception index. is therefore a great, welcome leap forward. While we welcome the direction in which the country in going , we cannot become complacent however, for in the Caribbean we are still far more corrupt than other members of Caricom, all of whom are doing much better than we are in terms of growth and progress.

Since the corruption that affects us most is propelled by the actions of politicians and persons employed to the public service, one way that we could make a great leap forward is to set up a commission to ban certain persons from holding public office for life. This is done in Nigeria where corruption is also a serious problem.

Such banning would of course be based on their track record and could not be based on actual conviction in the courts. For as we know, it is almost impossible to get a conviction of wealthy persons such as politicians and corrupt bureaucrats in this society.

So such a body would have to do their assessment based on the debilitating effect that the actions of persons who have held public office in the past, have had on the country. A perfect example of a debilitating effect is the type of contract that was signed on our behalf with the purchasers of the once publicly owned JPS...... a contract which never put the interest of Jamaicans in the forefront but instead has put us all in the position where were now have the most expensive electticity rates in the region, a reality which will stymie our progress for decades to come.

And there are numerous other acts that have been done supposedly on our behalf by those who we employed but who did not put our interests in the forefront, for which we continue to pay dearly.

So until we do something revolutionary, we will only continue limping along and celebrating minor gains which though good, still keep us at the bottom of the pile in the region.