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Editorial
What a tangled web...
Sunday, February 14, 2010
The Ministry of Health, we notice, has broken its silence on the public health concerns at the Spanish Fiesta group's Grand Palladium Resort and Spa in Point, Hanover.
According to the ministry, a visit by the Hanover Health Department to the hotel last Friday morning revealed that despite an order to close the main kitchen, "operations were still taking place in breach of the public health regulations. Steps have therefore been taken to prosecute the hotel as provided under the Public Health (Tourist Establishments) Regulations 2000".
That the matter had to come to this is indeed sad. However, operators of businesses, particularly those in as fickle an industry as tourism, must acknowledge that they cannot operate in breach of the law.
Isn't it obvious to them that if they play around with public health issues until they burgeon into a scandal, Jamaica's entire tourism product will be compromised? Or don't they care?
While we accept and understand the health ministry's patience in working with the operators of the Grand Palladium Resort and Spa to correct the breaches first identified in July 2009, we cannot sanction the unwillingness of State officials to speak on such an important issue without it first being exposed in the press.
We refer here to our attempts last Thursday to get someone from the Ministry of Health to confirm the report, given to us by a source, that the Health Department had given the hotel 30 days to address the problem. Everyone with whom we spoke referred us to someone else.
The upshot was that this conspiracy of silence left us and the public questioning why the 30-day ultimatum; why wouldn't such unsanitary conditions require immediate closure of the kitchen; and why were the authorities unwilling to level with the public?
One would have thought that the officials who were trying so hard to keep this public health concern private would be mindful of Sir Walter Scott's 18th-century observation about complications that deception inspires.
Certainly, said observation could hit home hard for some in the near future if the Supreme Court rules that Mr Justice Boyd Carey has no business sitting as commissioner on the Finsac Enquiry.
Any such decision, we believe, will present the conveners of the commission with the dilemma of finding a replacement. For it is clear that there are forces at work determined to see this commission abandoned.
Then there's the damage that would be done to the reputation of Mr Justice Carey, who came out swinging, as it were, at the initial objection to his heading the commission.
For no matter which way the State's lawyers try to spin it, if Supreme Court judge Ingrid Mangatal boots Mr Justice Carey off the panel, it's going to look bad.
Indeed, based on what Justice Mangatal has said so far, it looks pretty bad already.
According to her, the matters raised against Mr Justice Carey are neither frivolous nor vexatious.
"In my view, there are a number of arguable grounds relating to the procedural unfairness and irregularities which merit further consideration at a full hearing and which appear to have real prospects of success," yesterday's Daily Observer quotes her.
What on earth could all of this mean?
We're almost afraid to ask.
We only hope that when the dust settles the survivors will be wiser and better equipped to carry on in the public interest.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/edito...r-Feb-14--2010
What a tangled web...
Sunday, February 14, 2010
The Ministry of Health, we notice, has broken its silence on the public health concerns at the Spanish Fiesta group's Grand Palladium Resort and Spa in Point, Hanover.
According to the ministry, a visit by the Hanover Health Department to the hotel last Friday morning revealed that despite an order to close the main kitchen, "operations were still taking place in breach of the public health regulations. Steps have therefore been taken to prosecute the hotel as provided under the Public Health (Tourist Establishments) Regulations 2000".
That the matter had to come to this is indeed sad. However, operators of businesses, particularly those in as fickle an industry as tourism, must acknowledge that they cannot operate in breach of the law.
Isn't it obvious to them that if they play around with public health issues until they burgeon into a scandal, Jamaica's entire tourism product will be compromised? Or don't they care?
While we accept and understand the health ministry's patience in working with the operators of the Grand Palladium Resort and Spa to correct the breaches first identified in July 2009, we cannot sanction the unwillingness of State officials to speak on such an important issue without it first being exposed in the press.
We refer here to our attempts last Thursday to get someone from the Ministry of Health to confirm the report, given to us by a source, that the Health Department had given the hotel 30 days to address the problem. Everyone with whom we spoke referred us to someone else.
The upshot was that this conspiracy of silence left us and the public questioning why the 30-day ultimatum; why wouldn't such unsanitary conditions require immediate closure of the kitchen; and why were the authorities unwilling to level with the public?
One would have thought that the officials who were trying so hard to keep this public health concern private would be mindful of Sir Walter Scott's 18th-century observation about complications that deception inspires.
Certainly, said observation could hit home hard for some in the near future if the Supreme Court rules that Mr Justice Boyd Carey has no business sitting as commissioner on the Finsac Enquiry.
Any such decision, we believe, will present the conveners of the commission with the dilemma of finding a replacement. For it is clear that there are forces at work determined to see this commission abandoned.
Then there's the damage that would be done to the reputation of Mr Justice Carey, who came out swinging, as it were, at the initial objection to his heading the commission.
For no matter which way the State's lawyers try to spin it, if Supreme Court judge Ingrid Mangatal boots Mr Justice Carey off the panel, it's going to look bad.
Indeed, based on what Justice Mangatal has said so far, it looks pretty bad already.
According to her, the matters raised against Mr Justice Carey are neither frivolous nor vexatious.
"In my view, there are a number of arguable grounds relating to the procedural unfairness and irregularities which merit further consideration at a full hearing and which appear to have real prospects of success," yesterday's Daily Observer quotes her.
What on earth could all of this mean?
We're almost afraid to ask.
We only hope that when the dust settles the survivors will be wiser and better equipped to carry on in the public interest.
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/edito...r-Feb-14--2010
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