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When the PNP's light (bulb) went off
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
It is truly painful to watch as the People's National Party (PNP), a once great party, becomes more and more pathetic in the image it is creating for itself.
Not even schoolchildren could be persuaded by the three top officers of the party - President Portia Simpson Miller; Chairman Robert Pickersgill and General-Secretary Peter Bunting - in their feeble attempt Monday to hoodwink the public about the party's position on the Cuban Light Bulb issue.
Faced with questions from journalists, following the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting, the PNP's most senior leaders told the public that they had not officially received the report of the contractor-general on the light bulb saga. When they do, they will refer the matter to their Internal Affairs Committee. They will then, presumably, take a position.
What utter balderdash!
No one is being fooled by this barefaced attempt at stalling. It cannot be that months after the revelations around the light bulb issue, the party still does not know what took place, contractor-general report or not.
We find it hard to believe that even after the earlier submitted auditor-general's report which found all sorts of questionable dealings, the party leadership has not sat down with Mr Kern Spencer, the former junior energy minister at the centre of the scandal, to determine how the taxpayers' money was spent, and at the very least, how his babymother and his mother-in-law came to be involved.
And if Mr Spencer has not been forthcoming, we would have expected to see some sort of disciplinary action aimed at re-establishing the party's credibility.
Of course, we understand that admitting guilt is not an easy thing to do. However, the PNP is neither declaring guilt nor innocence. What the country is left to do is speculate and draw its own conclusion.
That is a sure sign of a party that is bankrupt of ideas and bereft of the will to clean up its image.
There must come a time when, for the good of the party, the leadership comes clean, because the organisation is greater than its individual parts.
We still do not know if Mr Spencer committed any crime, even if on the surface there are appearances of that. But it cannot be in the PNP's interest that this doubt remains in the mind of the public at large.
As long as the credibility of the party is in question, the PNP cannot quite expect to be seen as a viable alternative to the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).
In fact, the PNP should be hoping that Prime Minister Bruce Golding is not now searching in his mind to determine when would be a good time to spring an election.
We would expect that he should, given the need to increase his party's parliamentary majority, and given the PNP's tattered image and loss of credibility.
In Jamaican political history, this period will go down as a dark chapter for the People's National Party. And its current leadership will have much for which to answer.
The light (and not just the bulb) seems to have gone out.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
It is truly painful to watch as the People's National Party (PNP), a once great party, becomes more and more pathetic in the image it is creating for itself.
Not even schoolchildren could be persuaded by the three top officers of the party - President Portia Simpson Miller; Chairman Robert Pickersgill and General-Secretary Peter Bunting - in their feeble attempt Monday to hoodwink the public about the party's position on the Cuban Light Bulb issue.
Faced with questions from journalists, following the National Executive Council (NEC) meeting, the PNP's most senior leaders told the public that they had not officially received the report of the contractor-general on the light bulb saga. When they do, they will refer the matter to their Internal Affairs Committee. They will then, presumably, take a position.
What utter balderdash!
No one is being fooled by this barefaced attempt at stalling. It cannot be that months after the revelations around the light bulb issue, the party still does not know what took place, contractor-general report or not.
We find it hard to believe that even after the earlier submitted auditor-general's report which found all sorts of questionable dealings, the party leadership has not sat down with Mr Kern Spencer, the former junior energy minister at the centre of the scandal, to determine how the taxpayers' money was spent, and at the very least, how his babymother and his mother-in-law came to be involved.
And if Mr Spencer has not been forthcoming, we would have expected to see some sort of disciplinary action aimed at re-establishing the party's credibility.
Of course, we understand that admitting guilt is not an easy thing to do. However, the PNP is neither declaring guilt nor innocence. What the country is left to do is speculate and draw its own conclusion.
That is a sure sign of a party that is bankrupt of ideas and bereft of the will to clean up its image.
There must come a time when, for the good of the party, the leadership comes clean, because the organisation is greater than its individual parts.
We still do not know if Mr Spencer committed any crime, even if on the surface there are appearances of that. But it cannot be in the PNP's interest that this doubt remains in the mind of the public at large.
As long as the credibility of the party is in question, the PNP cannot quite expect to be seen as a viable alternative to the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP).
In fact, the PNP should be hoping that Prime Minister Bruce Golding is not now searching in his mind to determine when would be a good time to spring an election.
We would expect that he should, given the need to increase his party's parliamentary majority, and given the PNP's tattered image and loss of credibility.
In Jamaican political history, this period will go down as a dark chapter for the People's National Party. And its current leadership will have much for which to answer.
The light (and not just the bulb) seems to have gone out.
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