Hypocrisy to the nth degree!

 When I heard the hullabaloo coming out of the Peoples National Party (PNP), private sector and a few other hypocritical mouths, because MP Warmington declared that opposition Leader Mark Golding’s color should disqualify him from becoming prime minister of Jamaica, I had a good laugh.

For wasn’t this the same party that was able to remain in power for eighteen years, not because they had good policies, but because they were able to convince most Jamaicans that Seaga, a white man could not lead Jamaica because of his color?

How the world turns!

P.J. Patterson, who led probably the most corrupt regime in the history of my poor beleaguered country, could never have stayed in power for 14 years, were it not for the race card that the PNP played consistently.

Where were all those people who are now protesting about Warmingiton’s comments, during that period?

Jamaica’s motto is “Out of many one people” is strictly aspirational in my view, as race baiting is an integral part of our culture.

I am not saying I support racism now, any more than I supported it when Seaga was head of the Jamaican Opposition JLP. 

Of course not.

What is double amusing too, is to hear some well-known apologists even trying to promote Mark Golding on the basis of what his late father did for the country.

The late Professor Sir John Golding, was an orthopedic surgeon who was key to helping to contain the polio epidemic that hit Jamaica in the 1950's. When he saw the level of disability that it caused especially among the poor, he established the Hope Institute to make and supply prosthetics for those affected.

In addition, he opened the Hope Valley Experimental School which was the first and only school in the Caribbean to integrate disabled and normally able children. Other initiatives included a company to employ the disabled, a farm for the handicapped, a Cheshire village a fairground to employ the handicapped and to raise money for a rehabilitation center, a prosthetics and orthotics center, a physiotherapy school and a hospice.

So yes, the late Professor John Golding was a great man.

However, the last time we Jamaicans elected a prime minister on the basis of what his father had done, it proved to be a great disaster and even thrust us in a civil war.

Yes, I am referring to the late Michael Manley, who sailed to leadership of the PNP on the coattail of his father, National Hero Norman Manley.

Oh, how we lived to regret it!

Let’s not do the same crap again, as that damage was too devastating and long lasting.

Out of many one people is a great aspiration yes.

But judge Mark Golding on his ability and policies and stop the hypocritical nonsense about not bringing people's color into political discussions.

The PNP started the trend, now they and their apologists need to cut out the hilarious side show about color and demonstrate to the country what they are capable of doing.

Rehashing the past?

When I saw the headline in The Gleaner dated February 7, 2015 declaring, 'Take over idle lands - 'Hugo' Buchanan', I thought I had been transported back to the past.

Why do politicians always concentrate on reinventing the wheel?

Why can't the Buchanans of Jamaica put their minds to coming up with strategies to get the hundreds of thousands of acres of Crown land into production and to provide housing for those poor people who contribute to the National Housing Trust but can never acquire a home or even a house lot before casting a grudgeful eye on people's private property?

For Mr Buchanan's information, there are good projects being undertaken by Farm Up Jamaica, 'One One Coco', and, probably, others that I am not aware of that could probably benefit from the Government's horde of idle lands, thus providing a good income for young farmers.

So let's have some creative thinking before even contemplating returning to the counterproductive days of trying to capture privately owned land.

Give More to Political Parties? Absolutely Not!

I am absolutely amazed, for despite several senators grandstanding and  claiming they object to  the taxpayers funding political parties, guess what? They approved the amendments to the Representation of People's Act  without removing that offensive requirement! 

So soon it will be legal for taxpayers to be pressured further to  come up with more money  to  finance political activity. And I deliberately said "more money" since  as Tom Tavares Finson reminded us, we already provide a high degree of funding. He gave as an example the last general elections where the money paid to party workers exceeded $50 million. And I am sure he did not take into consideration what goes into parish Councillors' salaries  for they are more beneficial to the PNP And JLP to carry out their party's activities at the grassroots than they are to us in their divisions! 

Further, does anyone ever know how much of the current million dollar and near million dollar telephone bills  that some minister run up annually go into their working in the interest of the country versus for private political campaigning?

As far as I am concerned, for the politicians to have passed this amendment is totally unconscionable and for the public to just ignore the implications is absolutely remarkable. For don't the Jamaican taxpayer recognise that in excess of 20% of the population lives in poverty and the constant cry is that government has no money to help them ease the pain in their bellies?

And if every other deserving organisation including the Salvation Army which looks after the interest of the poorest among us has to do their own fund raising, why shouldn't the political parties who history has shown have done so much to damage our economy since independence without anyone being held responsible for anything. So now, they are being given free passage to enjoy the privileges of power without any accountability and without them even doing their own fund raising.

According to those who  pushed the legislation for taxpayers to bankroll the political parties, this will prevent those with deep pockets who now  finance  the parties from influencing policy.

Hah. Since we are a country notorious for a lack of accountability and transparency will someone tell me how picking taxpayers pockets going to remedy this malady ?

Besides,  it is apparent that policy in Jamaica is more dictated by the IMF and foreign investors with deep pockets than by rich locals who finance the party of their choice. And this situation will remain as long as we remain a beggarly nation  as we have been since gaining independence 52 years ago.  And from all indications, we will remain so for decades to come because corruption and lack of accountability is so entrenched.

And as long as the level of national poverty  remains, foreign investors with deep pockets  will determine that they want Goat Island or any other section of Jamaica  and do anything they please that will damage the entire environment, without interference.

How is this latest legislation which will only put further financial pressure on the overtaxed population going to correct these situations?

Unconscionable Politicians

It is bad enough that in the midst of a debt crisis when the government has insisted that they have no money to help the poor and dispossessed to survive,  the prime minister of Jamaica, Hon Portia Simpson Miller stubbornly maintains a cabinet of over 20 ministers to administer the affairs of a mere 2.7 million people.

When the economic crisis first threatened to totally devastate the nation, concerned people called on the government to take a symbolic pay decrease to demonstrate to the hurting nation that they too were prepared to make sacrifices, but even this symbolism was resisted by the prime minster and despite the cut backs in education, health, security and other areas critical to the welfare of the nation, the government has done nothing to curb the voracious appetite of the petty politicians who deem themselves the gods of our universe as the strut around in the high end vehicles supplied by taxpayers and flaunt all the expensive perks of power.

We should therefore not be overly surprised that members of a government like this has also been been abusing the public purse in how they use the taxpayer provided cell phones, as they no doubt, individually set out to impress god knows whom.

So here we have Arnaldo Brown, a juniour minister to boot, racking up a cell  phone bill of $1.09 million for one year, according to the excellent investigative reporting done by Radio Jamaica (RJR).

And his is just the most obscene of the revelations so far as only half of the cabinet has supplied the information requested by RJR and that half alone has racked up total bill in excess of $5 million for chatting for one year. 

We have yet to hear the figures relating to the other half.

What is  enlightening too is the appearance that  those who have been the most expensive in this exercise have been the least productive. For what has Arnaldo Brown been doing that is a real asset to the country? On the other hand we see where Justice Minister Golding who has been doing a reasonable job, has not  cost the taxpayer one red cent for unnecessary chatting. That tells quite a story doesn't it?

Of course my advice to all who are expecting the Prime minister to do anything about this latest national disgrace is, please do not hold your breaths.

Excerpts of the RJR News Report on the Cost of Chatting by some members of the  the Jamaican cabinet.

Foreign Affairs State Minister Arnaldo Brown's bill for the year was the highest.
The Junior Minister, who roams on his foreign trips, had a $1.09m cell phone bill for the twelve months.
For June this year alone, Mr. Brown's cell phone was 410-thousand dollars.  
He recorded $150,000 in October last year and 170-thousand dollars in December. 
His senior minister AJ Nicholson calls cost $230,000 for the year.... about a quarter of his junior's cell phone bill. 
The next highest bill was that of  Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell...at over 930-thousand dollars.
He has two cell phones. 
For one month, Mr. Paulwell's Digicel phone bill was $116,000. 
His junior minister Julian Robinson cell phone bill for the year was $76,000. 
Health Minister Dr. Fenton Ferguson and Environment Minister Robert Pickersgill inched close to $800,000 in talk time. 
Dr. Ferguson with this two cell phones totalled  $749,000 for the year.
Mr. Pickersgill charge was $791,000...except his ministry submitted only 11 bills.  
In June this year, Mr. Pickersgill's cell phone bill was $142,000. 
The same ministry spent  $110,000 on junior minister Ian Hayles account for the entire year. 
But from January to May this year, that account was in credit to the tune of $48,000 dollars because the ministry had apparently overpaid the bill.     The ministry says it had overpaid in January...though it is said by $18,000.
    With two phones, Tourism Minister Wykeham McNeil's cell phone bill for the was almost half a million dollars... but again only 11 bills.
   In one month talk charges were $153,000. 
   His junior minister Damion Crawford's cell phone will was $364,000. 
In February, his bill was $180,000. 
Local Government Minister Noel Arscott's bill was $289,000 and junior Colin Fagan's $200,000 for ten months. 
Transport, Works and Housing and its two cabinet ministers and one state minister combined for over $400,000 bill. 
Richard Azan's cell phone bill was $53,000 for entire year. 
Youth Minister Lisa Hanna's bill was low relatively compared with the others...$45,000.
Mark Golding, the Justice Minister, does not have a government mobile phone assigned to him. 
Of the records we received, National Security Minister Peter Bunting $32,000 bill was the lowest. 
Of note too is that his monthly bill cell phone bill remained at also $2,700. 
The ministries of Finance, Education and Labour and Social Security have not responded. 
The Agriculture, Investment, Industry and Commerce ministries have promised to provided their bills shortly.

DUTTY LABOUITES

It was many, many, many, many decades ago, while growing up in a predominantly PNP environment, that I first heard the term "Dutty Labourite". As it was explained to children then, Alexander Bustamente, leader of the Jamaica Labour Party was illiterate so those who supported his party were the uneducated people who worked mainly in the cane fields and as field work kept one dirty, they were loosely referred to as  "dutty labourites". In fact, in those olden days, the term was even used to encourage children to study hard, lest they end up being "dutty labourites!" 

I had though that term had been removed from the Jamaican vocabulary many decades ago, what with successive Ministers OF Education always boasting about their great achievements which had brought education to the darkest corners of the island. So I had (wrongly?) assumed that the few illiterates left could not make up the fairly large bulk of Jamaicans who describe themselves as JLP supporters!

Mr. Damion Crawford's glib use of the term recently therefore tells me a lot more about what happens behind closed doors at PNP meetings than even about Mr. Crawford himself. For Mr. Crawford would have been born somewhere in the 80's, long after that term ceased to be in common usage. Yet it flowed as naturally from his tongue as honey flows from honey comb!

This just serves to reinforce my belief that cultism is hazardous to the development of this fledgling nation!~

Corruption Lessons

According to the Economist magazine, Nigeria  with a GDP of $509 billion is now has the largest  economy in Africa, passing South Africa for the fist time with their GDP of $354 billion.

The bad news though is that because of endemic corruption, over 70% of the 170 million population there live below the poverty line,  a large number barely existing in a country awash with oil, with an income of US$1.00 per day.

Jamaica is following a similar line and for the same reason, for we have more resources than every other island in the English speaking Caribbean, yet have the lowest per capita income and with a population of 2.7 million, we were recently told that  some 1.1 millions are now living below the poverty line. This was the result of a finding by American Counselling Association and the Association of Adventist Family Life Professional Dr. Alanzo Smith. 

I wonder if the general population here will ever learn to stop accepting corruption as the normal way of life?

Bias versus Coldbloodedness

It is absolutely amazing how the Member of Parliament for western Kingston, Desmond Mckenzie  can be accusing Velma Hyton, former Counsel to the 2002 commission of inquiry into events at Tivoli Gardens in 2002, which led to the death of some 27 persons, of only bias.

This arose from Hylton saying in 2002,  'In my respectful submission, if the women and children deliberately put themselves between the law-and-order forces ... to enable those gunmen behind them to fire at the security forces and to fire at civilians, I for one, do not understand why, in all circumstances, they cannot return the fire.'

Now that Hylton has been appointed as one of the Commissioners to look into events in 2010 in that same area, which led to the death of perhaps, in excess of 100 persons, some 42 of whom the Public defender said were executed., there is no doubt in my mind that Ms. Hylton is far too cold to be considered for this Commission especially as it was reported elsewhere that some of the kids ranged from ages 6 and 12! For do kids of that age fully understand the implications of life and death and even where they do, did they have a say into whether they were to become human shields or not? As to the women, has Ms. Hylton ever heard of excessive force?

Quite, frankly, I think Ms. Hylton would have even made the blood of the British in 1865, run cold, for as history tells us, they did not take kindly to Governor Eyre's excessive force in the Morant Bay rebellion, especially after a soldier admitted, "we slaughtered all before us… man or woman or child".

On the other hand, George Zimmerman was recently invited to a gun show to sign autographs.

 Maybe Ms. Hylton will be similarly celebrated one day!

SLOW PACE OF CHANGE

One of the most wasteful and stupid practices of successive Jamaican governments is to establish a new agency to deal with every new problem.

So taxpayers are forever saddled with several agencies overlapping each other and despite the fact that the country is now scraping the proverbial barrel to try and ward off insolvency, the logic of amalgamating agencies continues to evade us.

So it is with this in mind that I overwhelmingly welcome the move to finally amalgamate the JCF and ISCF (blue stripe and red stripe police) 20 years after it was recommended by the Wolfe Task force on crime! Is this a sign that we are finally coming to our senses?

I doubt it very much, for no where have I heard that anyone wants to restructure that expensive relic of colonialism, the army, to serve the best interests of the Jamaican people, so I suppose that we will continue to waste billions on  that deadly institution  for centuries to come, although we have no empire to protect. (Could they protect us from an invasion from Cayman anyway? I doubt it!)

What purpose does a fully fledged army serve? Sure we need a coast guard, an air wing and an engineering corp but shouldn't the thousands who make up the infantry be offered the opportunity to be retrained to serve and protect the people of Jamaica via the police force? Right now, these men have very little to do except act as bat men  for the  officer corp and occasionally, although they are not trained to do police work, they are sent in to terrorize people in the inner-cities.

 It is  pathetic to see these healthy young men being trained at Newcastle and no one would even think of giving them some paint and lumber to fix up their quarters there which is slowly but surely crumbling.  Then after they are trained, they are wasted at camp. Such blatant under-utilization of human capital.

While we waste money and peoples lives on a redundant army, Costa Rica, situated in the midst of turmoil in Centrral America, abolished theirs in 1947 and diverted the resources to education. No wonder their per capita income is almost twice ours and the last time I visited there about two years ago, a friend was able to boast that they do not do manual labour but import Nicaraguans to do all their "dirty work."

Oh how thousands of our Jamaicans would love to  get an opportunity to go there and do their "dirty work" while our governments continue to operate as a "one eye men in blind man country."

Deflecting the Blame

If ever there was a puny, sick, hypocritical attempt to deflect the blame for the appalling crime situation in Jamaica from the politicians, it was that presentation in parliament recently by Minister of Education Ronnie Thwaites, in which he labeled some schools as crime incubators.

For just about everyone knows that Jamaica being in the top five of the murder capitals of the world, is a direct result of the activities of some of the politicians themselves, no one else.

For it is the politicians who created the garrison constituencies which research has shown, has produced some 80% of the violent criminals who continue to haunt the country.

Oh yes, we in Jamaica  like to boast about our democratic traditions but we find it convenient to forget while talking about this  "democracy" to ignore the fact that some 25 % of the constituencies are garrisons or have large garrison segments where the people must vote as the dons, (gunmen supported and armed by some politicians) instruct them and in some garrisons, the people are even virtual slaves who must give the dons a portion of their earnings and send their children to them on demand, to satisfy the sexual pleasure of these well armed enforcers.

In the constituencies controlled by dons on behalf of some of the legislators sitting in parliament, a politician getting up to 120% of the vote in an election has not been considered unusual in Jamaica!

After establishing the tradition of garrison politics, mainly between the 70's and 80's, what we have today is the children and grandchildren of the original dons who were nurtured by some politicians,  growing up to become successful gun criminals in their own right and being the main perpetrators of the extreme violence in the country.

While listing the schools that Thwaites claimed statistics showed produced most of the criminals who were polled in prison, what he failed to tell the country was that most of  these schools were in the garrisons created by the politicians, so it is the environment that the kids were coming from that made them deviants, not the schools.

No attempt by Thwaites or any other politician to sanitise the role some of our leading politicians or deflect the blame from them {many of whom have been  hailed and deemed Most Honourable,) for making Jamaica one of the most murderous places on the planet, can succeed, for our memories are not that short!

A Kleptocracy Indeed

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?

Jamaica and Caricom

I am convinced that if Jamaicans had not threatened to boycott goods coming from Trinidad, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would have remained totally unconcerned about the issues which have made Caricom a millstone around the necks of the taxpayers in this country.

Now we see them jumping into action to hold discussions with the Trinidadian Minister of Foreign Affairsbut I am wondering out loud, who is really representing out interests in this discussion? Minister Nicholson, the man who told us to leave Trinidad alone?

I wonder why am I not feeling optimistic about the outcome of these meetings?

Leadership Crisis

Jamaica has a serious leadership crisis which does not bode well for the future of this beleaguered country at all.

Things  have been made worse by the recent election of Andrew Holness, a Seaga protegee and apparently a follower of Machiavelli, to the leadership of the alternative government, the JLP.  For many people had hoped he being a young man who claimed to be transnational, would have brought some semblance of decently and integrity to the political process as the present government has long proven to be not only incompetent and corrupt but lacking in leadership. For while our first female Prime Minister Portia Simpson is a novelty, that is mainly what she is and in fact is an embarrassment to female leaders throughout the world, who until now, have been far better at governing and leading than their male counterparts.

So that was why all eyes and hope were on the young man, the representative of the new generation. Holness has however has proven to be far too vindictive, petty and totally dishonest to allow us to hold out any hope for this country, for since he won the election, his only mission seems to have been to go after not only those who openly came out in support of his opponent Audley Shaw but also to even punish those who remained silent, leaning neither towards him or Shaw!

Where he struck the nail in his coffin however was by his outright act of dishonesty towards his own colleagues and  party supporters,  showing what he has in store for all  detractors, independent thinkers and persons aligned to the PNP. 

When Holness was first selected JLP leader by the disgraced Bruce Golding in 2011, as per normal, he selected a group of senators to sit in the Upper House. What Jamaica did not know however is that these appointees had been required to demean themselves in exchange for the vaunted job, by giving Holness undated and open letters of resignations.

While it has been revealed that  the unsigned  letters did not state how or when they could be used. Holness had apparently given the senators verbal assurances that they would only be used if any of them opposed the party's stance on having the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) replacing the British Privy Council as Jamaica's Finial Court of Appeal. 

However when two senators Auther Williams and Dr. Chris Tufton refused to obey his unreasonable request for all senators to resign after he was elected Leader, he simply ignored his promise to the two to only use the letters for a specific purpose, dated them and sent them to the governor general!

If that is not a total breach of trust, I certainty do not know what is, but if Jamaicans do not understand by that act, he is totally without scruples, then we are as blind as lambs to the slaughter.

Of course the crisis of leadership in this country has not passed unnoticed by all around us, for, within days, Barbadian Minister of Industry and International Business Domville Innis,  in castigating the Gleaner for an editorial criticising his government, told them to mind their own business and instead pay attention to the  "...rot going on in Jamaica."

Jamaica is indeed the sick man of the Caribbean. 

I Plead Insanity!

I plead insanity for having believed the hype on Sunday last that despite the bruising leadership challenge to Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) leader Andrew Holness, he would have been willing to be magnanimous in victory.

I guess I was just hoping against hope.

Instead, Holness moved swiftly to get rid of those who did not support his leadership, reappointing only Bartlett and Shaw as showpieces to the new shadow cabinet.

What would have been magnanimous and sensible would have been for him to have reappointed everyone from the original shadow cabinet en bloc then over a period remove the non performers, as they have always outnumbered the performers. Instead he jumped straight into stark victimization.

Plus what possible reason can there be for wanting the senate to resign for nothing has changed over the 2 years since Holness appointed those senators except that some did not support him ion his leadership challenge.  His calling for their resignation therefore has nothing  to do with their performance or usefulness to the country but pure pettiness.

I  therefore applaud  Mr. Shaw for putting his own political future on the line and standing up with those who supported him who are threatened with victimization, none more obvious than the two deputy leaders who came out in support of him but whose nomination papers mysteriously disappeared  few days before the election.

And if Holness really wanted to unify the party as he claimed , what of the fate of the lady Councillor who was evicted from Samuda's office for supporting Shaw and the one whose future in  politics was threatened by Warmington?

It is perfectly clear that while democracy prevailed on Sunday, it is really vindictiveness  and divisiveness which is the final victor.

Looking into the future

On Sunday, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) pleasantly surprised the Jamaican people by having a peaceful and apparently fair election. Surprised everyone I say, as so many of the older, influential persons in the party had been totally against an electoral challenge to the leader Andrew Holness because of their culture of  allowing only the elites in the party to select the leaders, thus opening up of the system to allow delegates to decide was to them totally unacceptable to them.

Their vitriol on the campaign trail even indicated that they considered anyone who supported the challenger as a traitor and we all know the penalty for treachery!

It will now be very interesting  to see who makes the new shadow cabinet and even the senate as that will tell us whether the talk of uniting the party is really genuine.

Now that the process is over too, we look forward to them presenting the country with a workable alternative to the mismanagement and corruption which is the order of the day and hopefully, those who were only roused from their slumber by a leadership challenge though being well paid by taxpayers, will remain wide awake to defend the interests of the Jamaican people. 

The JLP Leadership Race

In another few days we will know who will lead the once alternative government (the JLP) to most likely, another  defeat, in the next election. Lead to another defeat I say, since the JLP has become more and more irrelevant  and unattractive over the years, so I really cannot see them ever winning power again in the near future without first going back to basics. But of course I could be wrong for as they say, a week is a long time in politics.

When Andrew Holness became leader of the JLP in 2011, many of us welcomed a bright young man who one would have expected to come with new ideas. Instead he seems to have surrounded himself with dinosaurs whose attitude has kept them miles away from the grass roots while Holness sat back and relaxed, collecting a fat pay as Leader of the Opposition while apparently just waiting on the government to become so unpopular that the people would vote them out.

Had it not been a leadership challenge to Holness, he would apparently have remained asleep, though equipped with the report outlining the reasons for the losses in the 2011 election but doing nothing to correct the problems.

Then there are the questions being raised about his possible apparent, sudden, immense wealth as being displayed in the construction of an ostentatiously vulgar mansion in Beverly hills which numerous people in the know, claim he is the owner of.

The big questions are , if Holness wins on Sunday, will he finally start to reorganize the party taking into consideration the suggestions in the report or will he promptly go back to bed? And if challenger Shaw wins, will his health hold out considering the strain that Jamaican politics can put on an individual? ( Remember, he had a few health scares when he was minister of finance after the 2007 election.)

Time will tell but it seems Jamaicans who are not stuck on any party but just the welfare of this beautiful country,  have got to start actively seeking out and supporting and building third parties which show the potential to help the country weed out the corruption for which this PNP government has become notorious, a direction from which they will apparently never deviate, unless forced by a conscious electorate. Problem is, no such parties have yet been formned!

Backward Constitutional Requirement

On reading an  article in the Jamaica Observer today that Jamaican born Mark Escoffery-Bey  is vying to become president of the Bronx borough  with its almost 1.5 ,million population, I could not but be reminded of the fiasco in my own country, Jamaica, where persons born in the USA cannot represnt our tiny constituencies without first revoking their American citizenship.

This became an issue in the 2011 election and one would have thought we would have looked at this discriminatory constitutional provision by now, discriminatory because it prevents younger Jamaican born persons who take up US citizenship   (as opposed to the older generation who migrated mainly to England and became English citizens) to return to serve their country while remaining dual citizens.

 On the other hand, commonwealth citizens, even those who have never lived here for more than a year, are welcomed with open arms to become constituency representatives and even prime minister, without having to give up anything.

It is time this 50 year old provision be reworked one way or the other, either to keep out all aliens or level the playing field.

One would have thought that the JLP which was the party that suffered most because of this discriminator constitutional requirement, would have gotten off their bottoms to mobilize the citizens to have this requirement changed to give Jamaicans better a wider choice in candidate selection, but I must have been dreaming to have expected the JLP to really fight for progressive change.

Young People Leading By Example

I get such a warm feeling every time I see some young successful Jamaican putting things in place to help the less fortunate. If only some of the greedy members of the older generation who do nothing but grab for more than they will ever need,  could learn from them.

The latest one to warm my heart was star sprinter Veronica Campbell Brown , who in wanting to make a difference in the lives of the younger generation, set up a foundation which will be funded from  fees she earns as an athlete.

She joins other conscious superstars like Shelly Any Fraser- Pryce, Asafa Powell , Yohan blake and so many other of our athletes who I cannot recall at this moment, who have shown the same type of care for the less fortunate.

However,  this type of generosity is not only confined to successful athletes as one recalls the contribution successful artists such as Lady Saw, Shaggy and Capelton continue to make towards children.

It is such a pity that so many of our politicians seem too old to learn that it is better to give than receive, thus they spend so much of their time trying to extract everything from all and sundry,  instead of helping the less fortunate.

Our salvation indeed lies with the youth.

The Realities of the garrison

I had difficulty deciding whether to laugh or cry on hearing the prime  minister, in defending the revived Innercity housing programme, under which numerous  non contributors will get houses, compliments of many poor contributors who pay into the fund but will never be able to qualify for a loan, claiming that if the inner city recipients do not pay the mortgages, their houses will go up for auction like any other mortgagee in the country.

Did the prime minister, a person who has represented a garrison constituency all her political life really say that with a straight face? Could it be that the prime minister has become so far removed from the Jamaica that she leads that she is no longer aware of the realities of the garrison life?

Would the prime minister tell us who in their right mind would ever dare try to go into a garrison to live in a house that they had bought at auction, assuming that anyone could even go into put up the notice signs? Does the prime minister really believe that even another garrison resident would dare to try and move into a repossessed  unit?

As I listened open-moutedly to the prime minister's defense of the progrramme,  I could not but recall the desperation with which a mechanic who I knew approached me some time ago. He lived in a garrison and had managed to get a government house for which he paid a small mortgage. When his mom got ill in St. Thomas, he went to the country for about three months to stay with her.

When he returned, his belongings had been packed away around  the back of the house had had been paying for for years and other persons were living in his home. He was told that he had a house in the county and it was other people's turn now to live in the house! When I suggested that I would go to the police with him to deal with the matter, you can guess the response.!

The reality of garrison life is that the vast majority are decent people, but they live under the gun and  are modern day slaves as the concept of free will in most of those areas is nothing but a dream.

 In fact, the Gleaner must be commended  for trying once again  for trying to awaken our collective consciences by putting the nasty realities of garrison life  back on the front burner with the recent editorial  entitled "Tyranny of the Ghetto, which began "A police superintendent has this week confirmed what was often rumoured about girls who have been reported missing from inner-city communities. According to Deputy Superintendent Steven Moodie, some teenage girls living in such neighbourhoods are sent away by their mothers to the country, or to relatives elsewhere, to get them out of harm's way. These girls are then reported missing.

By sending their daughters away, parents are trying to prevent their daughters' sexual exploitation by inner-city dons who are known to summon these girls, explained the deputy superintendent. Presumably, there are some parents who have nowhere to send their daughters, which means they have no alternative but to expose them to sexual abuse."

What the Gleaner highlighted once again is something we all know but prefer to live in the world of "See No evil, Hear No Evil" although we have no problem speaking evil.

But are we speaking with a desire to bring about change and liberate those who live under the gun in this country?

 Oh yes, garrison politicians pretend they do not know the enforcers and have nothing to do with them, but you don't see them at election time campaigning in those constituencies to try and win a seat like in real democracies,  for they are secure in the knowledge that the enforcers that they "do not know and have no association with "will ensure that all the votes are delivered in the boxes in their  absence as they prance around in other constituencies to assist weaker candidates!! 

So don't tell me that garrison politicians do not have a responsibility to liberate those who live under the tyranny in the garrisons and don't tell met that people can go into a garrison and buy a repossessed unit and live happily every after in a home which has been sold for non payment of mortgage.

You know what is sickening about Jamaica too?  We  are reputed to have more churches per square mile than any other country in them world and a higher proportion of persons professing to be christian than probably anywhere else, but  most of these "upright" persons and people of high morals have chosen to ignore the sections of the bible which speaks to being our brothers's keeper ! For if Jamaica was really a christian country or if modern day christians were against slavery as were some of their counterparts centuries ago, they would have risen up with one accord long ago and united to demand from the political beneficiaries, the freedom of those thousands of Jamaicans who live under tyranny in the garrisons, while the politicians who benefit try to pretend that they have no idea what is happening.

It was the late Martin Luther King who said "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."  I wonder what he would say if he reincarnated in  Jamaica today where we seem all too happy to remain silent about the wickedness that passes for normal circumstances and democracy in this country, with the tacit complicity of the huge religious sector?

Jamaica and Caricom

This absolutely beautiful country of mine, Jamaica is a big joke!

We are rightly fully rated among the happiest people in the world for we care about nothing, so our rulers knowing that,  are happy to do anything they feel  to us and get away with it.

Take the issue of Jamaica and Caricom. For years I have been one of the lonely voices in the wilderness pointing out that our association with Caricom has been nothing but a very expensive attempt to federate us through the back door with the other English Speaking Caribbean  countries although our association brings no benefit but severe costs.

This was the  feeling of the majority of the people in 1961 when they voted "NO"  in the the Referendum  on the issue,  but because our modern leaders all wear the University of the West indies school tie, they have tried to sneak us into this backdoor federation with great success.

Those of us who object to he federation, point to the disadvantages to Jamaica under the treaty of Chagaramus which have caused this country to have become a virtual colony of Trinidad and the fact that Jamaicans do not enjoy free travel to the smaller territories and in most cases are made to feel unwelcome.

These are issues that successive governments have chosen to ignore so it was with great surprise  that I read in the newspaper that  in joining in the Shanique Myrie case, one hears that the lawyers representing the Jamaican government are contending that Barbados has engaged in a pattern of discrimination against Jamaicans  Duh. So  if they have known this all along,  why have they not done anything about it?

Stupid question I guess, for nuh suh di tings run  a yard!

(Shaniqe Myrie brought a case against the Barbados government for refusing her entry to that country and for conducting a body search on her . The case is being brought in front of the Caribbean Court of Justice).

Poor Management, No Sanctions

One of the reasons why Jamaica has become one of  the (if not the most) most indebted countries in the world is because there are absolutely no sanctions for poor management/performance or policy making  in the public sector.  But why should there be when our taxpayers don't care that they are always being forced to bear the full brunt of the fallout?

One does not have to look far to find recent, stark and recurring examples of this being rubbed in our faces.... the Public Defender Earl Witter,  winner of the poorest performer award for the years 2011, 2012 and possibly 2013 and look at the destructive performance of the National Water Commission (NWC) over the years.

 The NWC has developed the expertise in destroying infrastructure and undoing all good road work and replacing same with totally unacceptable work.

 Oh yes, each time, the NWC is broke, it can always run to the taxpayers and get a bailout, whether we like it or not, but  are the policy makers /management or anyone there ever sanctioned for throwing money down the drain?

Never heard of it.  Latest examples of their destructive and money wasting practices will soon be visible on the new airport road and are already in evidence in Portmore where some roads were recently rehabilitated.

I think the Jamaican taxpayers deserve awards for being the most complacent, compliant and long suffering in the world.