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Friday, August 28, 2009
Everything that Prime Minister Bruce Golding said on the front page of yesterday's edition - from the 'significant' top-ups that have been paid to police and teachers since 2007, to the rationale behind the freeze on public sector wages - sounds reasonable.
However, this space cannot accept his stated inability to honour the seven per cent increase agreed for the 2008-2010 contract period, not unless he can clear the fog from the issue of the $60-million upgrade to the Government house now occupied by Mr Mike Henry, his minister of transport and works.
What we, along with many Jamaicans would like to know, is how, against the background of the harsh economic times of which the prime minister speaks, his administration justifies it.
And if that expenditure cannot be justified by anything other than Mr Henry's stated resolution not to live in squalor, can we really say that the civil servants - who are agitating for what is due to them - are being unfair?
Don't they, too, have a right to press for benefits that will help them to circumvent the same squalor of which Mr Henry spoke?
It is full time that we turned our attention, as a country, to the issue of how exactly the State is managing resources which should, rightly, be employed for the benefit of as many people as possible.
For the gap between the type of life that Mr Henry and his colleagues live and the life that the average person lives is way too wide.
It is this gap, which also exists between the most vulnerable in society and those who are themselves barely surviving, that will ultimately guarantee our collective downfall.
So what do we do?
Do we continue to pretend that it is all right to keep straining the resources of the State to facilitate luxuries like the multi-million-dollar refurbishing exercise for Mr Henry's house, protracted predictable legal battles and done-deal by-elections which are attributable to the contempt that those holders of dual citizenship have for the Constitution?
Or do we pretend that it is all right - in the name of negotiations for better wages and fringe benefits - for teachers, nurses, police and other essential service providers to abdicate their responsibility to build this nation by holding it to ransom through threats to strike at the expense of those who depend upon them most?
It is our opinion that none of these positions is sustainable.
The Government cries out for understanding on the basis that it is broke, whilst frittering away the people's money on non-essentials.
Civil servants cannot hold a hard line that jeopardises the opening of schools and functioning of health services and the nation's security.
Some amount of yielding is going to have to take place between the two extremes. Otherwise, sooner or later, we'll all break.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/edito...IKE_HENRY_.asp
Everything that Prime Minister Bruce Golding said on the front page of yesterday's edition - from the 'significant' top-ups that have been paid to police and teachers since 2007, to the rationale behind the freeze on public sector wages - sounds reasonable.
However, this space cannot accept his stated inability to honour the seven per cent increase agreed for the 2008-2010 contract period, not unless he can clear the fog from the issue of the $60-million upgrade to the Government house now occupied by Mr Mike Henry, his minister of transport and works.
What we, along with many Jamaicans would like to know, is how, against the background of the harsh economic times of which the prime minister speaks, his administration justifies it.
And if that expenditure cannot be justified by anything other than Mr Henry's stated resolution not to live in squalor, can we really say that the civil servants - who are agitating for what is due to them - are being unfair?
Don't they, too, have a right to press for benefits that will help them to circumvent the same squalor of which Mr Henry spoke?
It is full time that we turned our attention, as a country, to the issue of how exactly the State is managing resources which should, rightly, be employed for the benefit of as many people as possible.
For the gap between the type of life that Mr Henry and his colleagues live and the life that the average person lives is way too wide.
It is this gap, which also exists between the most vulnerable in society and those who are themselves barely surviving, that will ultimately guarantee our collective downfall.
So what do we do?
Do we continue to pretend that it is all right to keep straining the resources of the State to facilitate luxuries like the multi-million-dollar refurbishing exercise for Mr Henry's house, protracted predictable legal battles and done-deal by-elections which are attributable to the contempt that those holders of dual citizenship have for the Constitution?
Or do we pretend that it is all right - in the name of negotiations for better wages and fringe benefits - for teachers, nurses, police and other essential service providers to abdicate their responsibility to build this nation by holding it to ransom through threats to strike at the expense of those who depend upon them most?
It is our opinion that none of these positions is sustainable.
The Government cries out for understanding on the basis that it is broke, whilst frittering away the people's money on non-essentials.
Civil servants cannot hold a hard line that jeopardises the opening of schools and functioning of health services and the nation's security.
Some amount of yielding is going to have to take place between the two extremes. Otherwise, sooner or later, we'll all break.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/edito...IKE_HENRY_.asp
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