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The PNP's problems set to grow even more
MARK WIGNALL
Thursday, March 13, 2008
If the information which keeps "slipping under my door" is correct, another scandal, related to recent matters will descend on the PNP and will take it dangerously close to the leadership ranks in that party. I am not making reference to Trafigura, even though it is common knowledge that then prime minister, Portia Simpson Miller, met with some of Trafigura's principals during her extended overnight tour at Jamaica House which ran from March 2006 to September 2007.
In the broad polity operating, two distinct views emerge. One is from the lunatic side of the JLP, the arch-fanatics, salivating at the thought of another PNP big name being dragged down to mud level. The other view encompasses a concern that the chips must fall where they may, but that the pursuit of "government" must not be derailed as a result.
In the interim, surrogates of the destructive arm of the PNP have been carrying the line that the prime minister has somehow "planted" his daughter, Sherene, in the Attorney General's Department. What are the facts?
Sherene Golding (first degree - Howard; Master's - Rutgers; law degree - Georgetown University) was appointed special assistant/parliamentary liaison to Dorothy Lightbourne, the attorney general. This is a political appointment in the same way that all special assistants and special advisers are.
It is an accepted convention that these posts are filled by people chosen by the ministers and who enjoy their confidence. While she was prime minister, Portia Simpson Miller, for example, had Pamela Redwood, Deborah Hickling and Jennifer Edwards PLUS three special advisers - Anthony Irons, Lincoln Robinson and Howard Aris.
Prime Minister Golding has only two assistants - Pat Reid and Suzanne Leslie-Bailey, and no special advisers. Each minister is entitled to a special assistant. The leader of the house (Derrick Smith) and the leader of government business in the Senate (Dorothy Lightbourne) are additionally entitled to a parliamentary liaison to coordinate the work of the respective Houses of Parliament. Lightbourne has decided to combine both functions into one position, thereby saving money.
So, what is the noise about? On Sunday, I will give you more.
"Malice towards none" made the greedy grow fat
There are some who believe that Eddie Seaga's 1980s "With malice towards none" speech had the effect of covering up the transgressions of the PNP government (1972 to 1980) and, apart from JAG Smith, when the PNP's time came back around in 1989, it was quite willing to see quid pro quo in the JLP's run from 1980 to 1989.
In the year before the September 2007 general elections, there were very few in the PNP even harbouring the thought of a JLP win. The mantra then was: "The people of this country will never elect Golding over Portia, never." When most of my PNP friends were telling me that Golding is too hated by his own JLP people to become elected, Golding was saying in his budget presentation of April 2007, "Where persons betray public trust and plunder public funds, they must know what the inside of a prison cell looks like and they must spend enough time in there never to forget it, and never to do it again."
The paper trails and the fingerprints of those in the PNP who were involved in the business of plundering public funds or in skilfully using the normal interface with private entities to "enhance" their bank accounts have indicated that of all of the plans the PNP had going into the September 2007 general elections, losing it was very definitely not an option.
Because of this failure to have an escape clause, rounding up those who were very blatant in their "plunder" will be much easier than many had previously thought.
Violent crime and murders have not sufficiently slowed to give us reason to breathe easier. In a knee-jerk response to the moronic action of a policeman in killing an 11-month-old child, the commissioner has ordered the withdrawl of the M-16 assault rifle, except for use by a special squad. That one move is indicative that the new commissioner is quickly stepping into the role of all former commissioners of police in not recognising that the problem is not one of guns but of an acceptance of a culture among our undereducated, poorly trained, dysfunctional policemen that our citizens are fair game for shooting.
As our citizens wade their way through the troubling, murky waters of increases in the price of almost all items, we become unsure of the role of government. We need ask no questions of the police force because most young men see "enemy" written on a police car long before it arrives. We know that the price increases are beyond us because we produce nothing, and all that we desire must come from overseas. So we exist like flotsam on the global economic sea, scrounging for the crumbs of the powerful, accepting that any port of call (at any time) is our destination.
We ask, does government exist for the purpose of stacking the deck for an elite few or, as we once imagined, does it exist for the main purposes of creating and maintaining law, order and an atmosphere where our citizens can find their own way towards health, wealth, civility and happiness? We need not only to see answers to these questions, we need to experience them in reality.
The lack of an effective Opposition will be very troubling for this country, just as in the days when Eddie Seaga and later Finsac, held back the then Opposition JLP and made what the PNP administration did from 1989 to 2002 that much easier. The problem is the PNP will be hobbled by troubles for the entire term to 2012 ,because during that time it will be forced to regurgitate some of what it gobbled up in secret in the years when it was whipping the JLP.
It will be troubled by bellyaches and headaches as its sordid past comes back to haunt it. Golding gave fair warning about corruption in 2007: ".no matter who you are, no matter how big you are, no matter whom you know or who knows you, you will feel the same punishment as the ordinary criminal."
-observemark@gmail.com
MARK WIGNALL
Thursday, March 13, 2008
If the information which keeps "slipping under my door" is correct, another scandal, related to recent matters will descend on the PNP and will take it dangerously close to the leadership ranks in that party. I am not making reference to Trafigura, even though it is common knowledge that then prime minister, Portia Simpson Miller, met with some of Trafigura's principals during her extended overnight tour at Jamaica House which ran from March 2006 to September 2007.
In the broad polity operating, two distinct views emerge. One is from the lunatic side of the JLP, the arch-fanatics, salivating at the thought of another PNP big name being dragged down to mud level. The other view encompasses a concern that the chips must fall where they may, but that the pursuit of "government" must not be derailed as a result.
In the interim, surrogates of the destructive arm of the PNP have been carrying the line that the prime minister has somehow "planted" his daughter, Sherene, in the Attorney General's Department. What are the facts?
Sherene Golding (first degree - Howard; Master's - Rutgers; law degree - Georgetown University) was appointed special assistant/parliamentary liaison to Dorothy Lightbourne, the attorney general. This is a political appointment in the same way that all special assistants and special advisers are.
It is an accepted convention that these posts are filled by people chosen by the ministers and who enjoy their confidence. While she was prime minister, Portia Simpson Miller, for example, had Pamela Redwood, Deborah Hickling and Jennifer Edwards PLUS three special advisers - Anthony Irons, Lincoln Robinson and Howard Aris.
Prime Minister Golding has only two assistants - Pat Reid and Suzanne Leslie-Bailey, and no special advisers. Each minister is entitled to a special assistant. The leader of the house (Derrick Smith) and the leader of government business in the Senate (Dorothy Lightbourne) are additionally entitled to a parliamentary liaison to coordinate the work of the respective Houses of Parliament. Lightbourne has decided to combine both functions into one position, thereby saving money.
So, what is the noise about? On Sunday, I will give you more.
"Malice towards none" made the greedy grow fat
There are some who believe that Eddie Seaga's 1980s "With malice towards none" speech had the effect of covering up the transgressions of the PNP government (1972 to 1980) and, apart from JAG Smith, when the PNP's time came back around in 1989, it was quite willing to see quid pro quo in the JLP's run from 1980 to 1989.
In the year before the September 2007 general elections, there were very few in the PNP even harbouring the thought of a JLP win. The mantra then was: "The people of this country will never elect Golding over Portia, never." When most of my PNP friends were telling me that Golding is too hated by his own JLP people to become elected, Golding was saying in his budget presentation of April 2007, "Where persons betray public trust and plunder public funds, they must know what the inside of a prison cell looks like and they must spend enough time in there never to forget it, and never to do it again."
The paper trails and the fingerprints of those in the PNP who were involved in the business of plundering public funds or in skilfully using the normal interface with private entities to "enhance" their bank accounts have indicated that of all of the plans the PNP had going into the September 2007 general elections, losing it was very definitely not an option.
Because of this failure to have an escape clause, rounding up those who were very blatant in their "plunder" will be much easier than many had previously thought.
Violent crime and murders have not sufficiently slowed to give us reason to breathe easier. In a knee-jerk response to the moronic action of a policeman in killing an 11-month-old child, the commissioner has ordered the withdrawl of the M-16 assault rifle, except for use by a special squad. That one move is indicative that the new commissioner is quickly stepping into the role of all former commissioners of police in not recognising that the problem is not one of guns but of an acceptance of a culture among our undereducated, poorly trained, dysfunctional policemen that our citizens are fair game for shooting.
As our citizens wade their way through the troubling, murky waters of increases in the price of almost all items, we become unsure of the role of government. We need ask no questions of the police force because most young men see "enemy" written on a police car long before it arrives. We know that the price increases are beyond us because we produce nothing, and all that we desire must come from overseas. So we exist like flotsam on the global economic sea, scrounging for the crumbs of the powerful, accepting that any port of call (at any time) is our destination.
We ask, does government exist for the purpose of stacking the deck for an elite few or, as we once imagined, does it exist for the main purposes of creating and maintaining law, order and an atmosphere where our citizens can find their own way towards health, wealth, civility and happiness? We need not only to see answers to these questions, we need to experience them in reality.
The lack of an effective Opposition will be very troubling for this country, just as in the days when Eddie Seaga and later Finsac, held back the then Opposition JLP and made what the PNP administration did from 1989 to 2002 that much easier. The problem is the PNP will be hobbled by troubles for the entire term to 2012 ,because during that time it will be forced to regurgitate some of what it gobbled up in secret in the years when it was whipping the JLP.
It will be troubled by bellyaches and headaches as its sordid past comes back to haunt it. Golding gave fair warning about corruption in 2007: ".no matter who you are, no matter how big you are, no matter whom you know or who knows you, you will feel the same punishment as the ordinary criminal."
-observemark@gmail.com