Thursday, September 20, 2012

Politics and Education

Jamaican politics never ceases to keep us entertained for nothing is really as it appears.
Take the latest brouhaha which has led to dreadlocked Member of Parliament Damion Crawford almost being crowned  a national hero by all us us (me included) because we saw him as young David fighting against the Goliath of corrupt old time politics.

This is because we have been led to believe that the contention in his constituency has been caused solely by his decision to use his Constituency Developement Fund ($15 million) to educate children in his constituency which has the 2nd lowest literacy rate in the country.

Now that true research has been done (congrats to the Gleaner newspaper) it turns out that he is not even spending half of his allocation on education!

So the big question now is, where is the rest of the money going? He needs not only to tell his councillors but us his former supporters as well!!

For his constituency has some of the most treacherous and badly maintained roads in  the island and he certainly needs to dedicate some of the almost $10 million left  to deal with this problem.

Come young Crawford, now that the scales have been removed from our eyes, we need to get a full accounting of how the CDF is being spent in  East Rural St. Andrew. In fact, lets not keep it within narrow boundaries, for all Members of parliamentary should tell the hard pressed taxpayer where each $15 million goes each year, lest we have to agree with the Gleaner that there is indeed a huge pork barrel hidden under the propaganda.

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