Wignall ruff tiday bwoy....

[Willi]

Go read the observer.

[Gamma]

fiyah deh a mus mus tail him t'ink a cool breeze.......chicken merry, hawk deh near....the higher monkey climb, the more him expose..

[Willi]

The PNP's shame is our own
WIGNALL'S WORLDMARK WIGNALL
Sunday, February 17, 2008


I can think of only a few circumstances in which the word 'orgy' as a description would be ideally suited.
When we hark back to the moral depredations which, it is said, walked hand in hand with the fall of the Roman empire, we conjure up festal excesses and carnal extremes when men locked with little boys, women gave up their bodily treasures to the nearest taker and in their orgy of sex and waste, the walls of empire were shaken to the ground.
A pack of sharks in a fight for food is often described as a feeding frenzy. Considering that if one shark rips a piece out of another in a misdirected bite, the wounded shark will continue to feed and will even eat its own bowels, it would be appropriate to also describe it as an orgy of madness.
We have not fully determined to the extent to which the PNP's run from 1989 to 2007 (and especially in the last term) encompassed enough of a feeding frenzy among the loyal and the committed comrades to allow it be classified as an orgy of corruption. But we are getting there because it seems that the files are too bulging to keep them contained for much longer.
In recent times when no-nonsense minister of Mining and Energy Clive Mullings made accusations on Kern Spencer, former junior minister in that ministry under the PNP government, the young Spencer sobbed openly, no, bawled while every time he attempted to rise to address Parliament, his colleagues, more versed in what the PNP as government and party had become in the eyes of an apathetic and ignorant public, urged him to sit down and say nothing.
SPENCER... at the centre of light bulb scandal
Some of us saw the crying and Spencer's attempts to speak as an attempt on the part of the young man to purge something from deep inside of him that was too painful to contain. Or, it could be that the accusations themselves comprised a scenario that in all of his political chess playing was never considered and hence, he had no countermoves. In one fell swoop we saw the real politics of the PNP - the type which told us that 'people' and 'vote' could be used to empower the chosen few.
When young (and apparently very busy on all fronts) Kern Spencer bawled and the tears flowed freely, another voice was drowned out even as it cried too. It was the voice of Norman Manley crying out from the grave and being drowned out amid the ringing of PNP cash registers. "And what is the mission of this generation now I quit my leadership?...I can only hope that comrades will be guided by a far-sighted understanding of the difficulties of the future and the state of the country, and the demands that will be made on new leadership."
The contractor general's report on the Cuban light bulb fiasco is one of the most damning reports I have ever read. While the PNP is now concerned with how the media got hold of it before it was tabled in Parliament, one segment of the report made the PNP's present focus redundant just as how the party will become if it does not soon secure new, viable leadership.
"The circumstances of the matter are compounded by the fact that Senator Spencer has admitted to the use of his public office to facilitate the award of the said contracts. In such circumstances, it is the OCG's considered view that, at a minimum, a criminal investigation into the matter is warranted to determine, inter alia, if corruption charges should be brought against Senator Spencer."

EXPECT NO MORE EXUBERANCE FROM PAULWELL

As one of Portia's most favoured in the latter part of the PNP's administration, Phillip Paulwell was no stranger to controversy, the kind that good, decent leadership could do without.
The NetServ scandal has never been sufficiently aired publicly. Solutrea was an embarrassment that crept away quietly. We are therefore overjoyed that as the senior minister (Mining and Energy and Telecommunications) in charge of Kern Spencer, Paulwell had so much faith in the abilities of his state minister to execute such an important project that at no time, no time at all, did he say to his junior, 'How is the light bulb project going?'
The contractor general in his report states, 'Besides the fact that Minister Paulwell was then minister with primary ministerial portfolio responsibility the OCG has been shown no evidence which would directly and conclusively implicate him for the lapses which have occurred in the project's accounting, financing and administrative controls during its implementing and execution phases.'
Having previously met with Fidel Castro in Cuba in 2005 at which time the Cuban people had made a gift of 73,000 energy-saving, fluorescent light bulbs, Paulwell used his constituency as a pilot project to one which would be eventually spread over the entire country. This was facilitated by the Cubans increasing the quantity of bulbs to four million.
Come budget time 2006 and minister Paulwell announces with fanfare the new, bigger gift from the Cubans and the real potential of the project to reap big savings in energy (oil usage) for the country. This was no 'dibby-dibby' project of cleaning a gully or bushing a few lots on crown lands. It was a showpiece not only of cooperation between the Jamaican and Cuban government but, in light of the fact that the JLP had not had cordial relations with the administration of Fidel Castro, Paulwell and the PNP must have seen in the project political negatives for the JLP, especially in light of the fact that elections were not that far off.
With all of that, one would have thought that even though Paulwell would have wanted to delegate something to his junior to cut his teeth on, at the very least, based on his budget presentation and the publicity attached to it, he would have considered it worthwhile to monitor this project and 'drop in' on the junior minister at regular intervals.
With such an important project on, Paulwell later told the contractor general that he 'cannot recall any formal document that was reviewed and mutually agreed by both parties.' In other words we simply said to the Cubans, 'Thanks, we don't need any heads of agreement, nothing formal.'
Minister Paulwell takes the cake for planning and organisation, and it is brought out in his statement to the contractor general when he is probed on the type of instructions given to his junior minister Kern Spencer. In November of 2007, he told the OCG that he was 'unable to provide documentary evidence of these directives which were given orally'.
Further in the contractor general's report it is stated that, 'To date the OCG has seen no evidence of any written contract between the government of Jamaica and any of the suppliers which have been paid by the PCJ pursuant to the execution of the 4Mproject.'
In a project in which $126 million was paid out with a whopping $153 million still owing, seemingly nothing was written down on paper. No minutes of meetings, nothing. As example of the 'fatness' of the project, the amount paid out for meals, the biggest item on the bill was $44 million. Of the amount still owing, the claim for meals was $73 million! Some menu!
In any private-sector company which operated that way, the general manager (Paulwell) would have been long fired. In August of 2007, just before the elections minister Kern Spencer had, according the OCG's report, 'By way of letters which were dated 2007 August 31, Mr Kern Spencer wrote to various suppliers indicating that their respective invoices had been approved.' The amount? $153 million, which would likely have been paid out had the PNP got its fifth term!
In Spencer's statement to the OCG he names then minister Paulwell as chairing one of three 'ad hoc' monitoring committees. According to him, that group met five times between June 2006 and June 2007.
In a most interesting part of the OCG's report the following is stated, 'Minister Phillip Paulwell, in his statement of 2007 November 12 stated that, "There was an implementation committee chaired by Minister of State, Hon Kern Spencer."'
More. 'When asked "From whom did each oversight body receive its directives?" Mr Paulwell stated that it was "Minister of State, Kern Spencer."'
Let me understand this. Spencer states that then minister Paulwell chaired one of the monitoring committees/oversight bodies and it met five times in the year following June 2006. At the same time Paulwell tells the OCG that all the oversight bodies received their orders from Spencer.
Something does not add up.

REV ROPER AND MAMMON

In PNP and media circles it has always been thought that Rev Garnet Roper is more PNP than the PNP itself. In other words, as far as commitment goes, the reverend gentleman is quite sold on the PNP's cause and its mission, that is, whatever that mission has become in the last 10 years.
Now comes the revelation that Rev Roper has been the beneficiary of government lands, known as crown lands. So far, nothing has been revealed to indicate that Roper acquired a
25-year lease on a five-acre property, flat farming lands, at Bernard Lodge illegally.
Rev Roper is luckier than most of us. For the lease he pays $15,000 per year. That converts to $3,000 per acre per year. Which is $250 per month per acre. And if you are really international in these times when land is at a premium, the Rev Roper is paying US$3.52 per month per acre!
And the taxpayers of this country will have to be bound by this legal agreement for the next 25 years. No, that's not quite true. Every five years the rates are reviewed.
Good going Rev, you lucky, savvy holy man.

WILL SINGING FOLLOW THE CRYING?

At the time when JLP minister Mullings had ex-minister Kern Spencer over the coals, young Spencer cried in parliament. It is thought that should the ex-junior minister decide to up the ante from using his lachrymal glands to engaging his vocal cords in singing, he may find that other persons may unwillingly find themselves accompanying him in the choir.
I myself was never a good singer, but occasionally whenever I sing in my bathroom I imagine myself on stage at the Royal Albert Hall or some such place, accompanied by a mass choir.
Spencer may not need a large choir. No more than about four or five will provide an adequate backup. But I ought to warn him. Singing, no matter how horrible it comes across, takes long hours of practice. The time to begin is now.

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