For some years now, some perceptive Jamaicans had been warning that Jamaica could one day become an official kleptocracy, which is defined
as a country ruled by or for the benefit of thieves and because the politicians
themselves have been so convincing over the years when speaking about the
activities of their opponents, it has been accepted by some of us that this
situation is already on top of us.
But have we really stopped to look at the serious
implications that this perception (reality?) is causing and making any effort
to really deal with it rather than just treating it as a joke and entertaining
veranda chatter, for as we all know, when the top of the stream is dirty, the
bottom will inevitably become an
unadulterated muck.
Two things happened recently brought this point home most
forcefully and made me wonder for the first time in my life, to whether there is any turning back for
Jamaica.
First was the shock of going to a company to pick up a
custom -built shirt and after having signed for it with one person, having
another person look in the bag then the security repeating the process at the
door......3 people, 1 shirt!
That reminded me immediately how much on our resources have
to be spent on preventing pilfering by staff and accomplices, something that I
understand which had contributed to the crippling of many of our free-zone producers many decades ago,
forcing some out of business altogether and others to move to other countries
where security costs would not stymie their competitiveness.
The second thing was receiving a email (joke) picture of a
toilet where the toilet paper was locked up
in a steel grilled encasement!
Yes we hear nightly stories about praedial larceny and the
devastating consequences on peasant
farmers etc, but I really did not
realize the serious rationale behind the epidemic of stealing until being in
discussion with friends when a young man
who was close by and who works in an electrical hardware establishment, chirped
in "Den if di politician dem a tief
everyting a di top wi a di bottom nuh must tek something fi wisself to."
That really stopped me in my tracks, for to him, he was
taking his cue from "Leadership by
example" so to him it was an automatic justification for theft at the
workplace.
How widespread is this view among young people and employees
in general? Do we really understand what is happening to our country? How are
we going to reverse the trend of thievery being the hallmark of the Jamaican workplace including the
political arena ?
The latest talk of the town is the construction of a home by
a young politician who was never in a particularly high paying profession
before he entered politics a few years ago, but who is reputed to be now
building an ostentatious mansion
costing somewhere in the $300 million
range.
It is certainly raising eyebrows in just about every sector
of the society with many asking which of the three anti-corruption agencies
that taxpayers are funding, will get off their haunches to investigate a matter
such as this?
For unless corruption at the top is quickly addressed, Jamaica will only continue sliding
rapidly down the slippery slope where everyone who looks to the leaders to set
the stage for what is right and acceptable, will just accept the status quo and
join the fray "...to get their share"
at the workplace, private farms and everywhere else, justifying it on the
grounds that this is what the leadership is doing.
Can you see Jamaica
ever truly becoming productive and being able to compete with other countries
that do not have the type of security expenses that we do?
Could it be that because we are so high up on the murder
scale that we have not become perturbed by the
creeping acceptance of theft because
we see it as less threatening, thus failing to recognize how our ability to
survive in the wider world is being destroyed by its pervasiveness?
1 comment:
Who is the young politician building a $300M house? I know Holness has a rahtid place on Millsborough. Also Ian Hayles now has 100 acres of prime beachfront land in Hanover that he didn't have before being MP.
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