As the plot thickens..what will be the next shoe to drop?

[Don1]

The plot thickens...

Sunday, April 11, 2010

As we suspected, last week's announcement by Prime Minister Bruce Golding of his intention to approach the local courts for a ruling concerning the handling of the US' extradition request for Mr Christopher 'Dudus' Coke, the strongman of his West Kingston constituency, has not brought a scintilla of clarity to the issue.

Instead, we are even more baffled than we were prior to the announcement, which itself was a creature of confusion. No nearer are we to knowing what the ultimate objectives of the proposed court action are, what precise format said action will take, or who will represent whom.

In the meantime, the controversy has deepened with the latest utterance by Mr Harold Brady, the attorney-at-law accused of taking it upon himself to hire US law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips on the Government's behalf without the Government's knowledge.

According to Mr Brady, the Government knows more than it is letting on.

Surprise!

We think the entire country has known, for some time now, that the Government has not been coming straight on this issue, which seems inextricably linked to the 'Dudus' issue, from the get-go.

From Mr Golding's ill-advised denial in Parliament about engaging the US firm at taxpayers' expense with a view to taking expert advice on how to handle the 'Dudus' affair, to the subsequent backtracking in the face of evidence to the contrary, to the current merry-go-round of ill-defined strategising, the entire saga's a mess.

The next round of explanations, according to Mr Karl Samuda, the Jamaica Labour Party's general secretary, is scheduled for tomorrow's Standing Finance Committee meeting.

Far more telling are the hours that have passed since Mr Brady's rather damning hints during a radio interview on April 8, that Information Minister Daryl Vaz is hiding information.

Since that one hit the fan, the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC) has called for an independent investigation into the affair. So, too, has the Opposition People's National Party, which -- based on its own dismal record in Government -- really has no moral authority to speak.

According to yesterday's edition of our sister newspaper, JCC President Milton Samuda said the matter has now reached the stage where it warrants independent investigation.

We submit that the matter has been begging an independent investigation for some time now.

For it seems clear that the current information machinery has broken down, leaving us with the following plot summary:

* A strong man of the prime minister's constituency wanted -- since last August, at least -- by the US to answer charges of drug- and gun-running...

* A staunch refusal by the Government to let the request run its course through the courts, coupled with an unseemly vow by the prime minister to pay the political price.

* Information suggesting that the Government engaged a US law firm to give advice on said strongman's behalf.

* Desperate and, to date, futile attempts to have the information retracted by the law firm and the local lawyer who supposedly took it upon himself to hire and -- we can only suppose -- pay thousands of US dollars to said firm.

* Prolific US visa cancellation upon prolific US visa cancellation.

What next?

[Muadib]

What next ?

minimum 12 more years of Labourite Govt..

[Mosiah]

i see you are adjusting your figures. carry on! don't let me stop you now!

[Muadib]

Audley mi name !

[Assasin]

a when since you start follow the selfserving newsletter?

[Muadib]

Butch mussi swith to PNP again.. suh dem still self serving..

lol !!

Yuh nuh know seh Don1 a clown from wheh day ?.. yuh ah tek him serious ?

[ReggaeMike]

And the plot will only thicken over the years if we have more columnists espousing opinions like this which in some way gives cover to suspicious dealings:

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/Wignall-Apr-11

PNP REVVING ITS ENGINE, BUT GOING NOWHERE
Mark Wignall

Sunday, April 11, 2010

If we should assume that the widespread perception of poor performance by the present administration is a bitter pill that we will have to swallow for some time yet, then the very thought that such a performance may force us to look to the opposition PNP is enough to make me want to overdose on bitter pills.
As I write, Finance Minister Audley Shaw has not yet made his Budget presentation. Arthur Williams, the junior minister in the finance ministry, has said the first IMF test has been passed, but Dr Wesley Hughes, permanent secretary in the finance ministry, has said it will be weeks before we know if we have passed the IMF test. On that basis, we wait with bated breath to see if 'Man-a-Yaad' Shaw can steady the JLP ship of confusion.

By now, of course, you will have known that Mr Shaw is not good at giving bad news, so it is my view that anything he says will sound good and upbeat, and done to the fist-thumping of the JLP crew.

In assessing the performance of the Government, we have long moved beyond the 'how-did-it-get-to-this' stage. Good sense and a penchant for maintaining one's sanity impel us to accept that the JLP administration has made a boo-boo of just about every area of importance in national life in Jamaica. Many of its missteps have been managerial and administrative ones and seemingly surreptitious tangents designed to satisfy secretive and infernal ends. Many of those can hardly be said to have befallen the JLP Government as a direct result of the global recession.

The idea of 'open government' anywhere in the world is simply that - an idea, with very few roots in reality. In more developed societies, such as the USA, this is even more the case, but the irony is whereas those countries have been able to satisfy a certain minimum on the service-delivery scale to its citizens, huge percentages of those populations will tend to believe that whatever it is their governments are doing behind cloistered, secretive walls, much of it is to the benefit of the nation, while shenanigans such as those related to, say, the war in Iraq, are simply the downside to, and the price to be paid for, democracy and the dark side of capitalism..

Wignall has long let himself be blinded (he even recently admitted in one of his columns to being shocked to hear from someone in the know that Golding's new and improved face was just a show). I can't tell how many times I've read his columns and wondered if he can really understand that in using a broad bush to defend the unprivileged he was at the same time supporting one side of the same dirty, coin from the gutter. So ready and willing to let off the behaviour of those on the end of police raids because of their situation, even though I'm certain when he was only 5 years old and when his parents were children they would never have conceived as possible that sort of behaviour from anybody of any status (who remembers when thieves didn't kill as a general rule? or when people weren't killed over the pettiest of things?). He half attempted to excuse blatant violations of constitutional law (aliens in parliament) because it fits with what is desirable (instead of lambasting rule breaking and then advocating a change in the rules) and now we see him fudging again, which basically just provides excuses instead of calling for real solutions:

The idea of 'open government' anywhere in the world is simply that - an idea, with very few roots in reality. In more developed societies, such as the USA, this is even more the case, but the irony is whereas those countries have been able to satisfy a certain minimum on the service-delivery scale to its citizens, huge percentages of those populations will tend to believe that whatever it is their governments are doing behind cloistered, secretive walls, much of it is to the benefit of the nation, while shenanigans such as those related to, say, the war in Iraq, are simply the downside to, and the price to be paid for, democracy and the dark side of capitalism.

Obviously he knows absolutely nothing about places like Sweden (where anybody can view anybody else's tax returns if I'm not mistaken and where some prisons actually allow some prisoners who have behaved extremely well to go out into society for fixed periods of time as part of the rehabilitation process) or even the US (which has the whole Freedom of Information culture going on which is what allowed us to even know that MPP 'incorrectly' has Brady as a government consultant and that Brady was actually stupid enough to sign a document claiming and thereby confirming that he was "Consultant to Government of Jamaica" and "hereby confirms that he is authorised on behalf of the Government of Jamaica to approve of the engagement of Manatt, Phelps and Phillips, LLP, as set forth in this letter."). Certainly there are secrets in governments, but to say the that 'open government' is only an "idea" is to give cover to dictatorship. I suppose for him 'morals' are also only an "idea" which has "very few roots in reality" and therefore not worth striving for. Open government is based on morals, such as truth and justice. If he believes those to be merely ideas then he certainly lives in the kind of Jamaica he deserves.

Even in the Iraq War example he attempts to proffer as some sort of proof is a ultra-weak example because within weeks US publications were printing all sorts of details (lots of it available due to the Freedom of Information Act) about which contractors were getting which juicy deals. Even before the War kicked off they were publishing all sorts of details from leaks and info obtained under Freedom of Information. We can even go back to when the US government (or rather sections of it) blatantly lied and see the vast disparity between the US response and our own:

Clinton - "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."

US response - independent investigation under Ken Starr who flat out reported that Clinton lied through his teeth.

Jamaica's government and Brady claim that the MPP contract is erroneous.

Jamaican response - general secretary of the JLP and commerce and industry minister is mandated to handle the issue.

[Don1]

a when since you start follow the selfserving newsletter?

Follow?? I post articles I find interesting... whatever the source

Babes, sucklings, newsletters...and even misguided tribalists can have coherent & valuable opinions

[Don1]

Wignall occasionally has sensible things to say.... just not often enough to be regarded as a serious commentator on national affairs

[Assasin]

you sound like Lazie right about now.

[Don1]

you sound like Lazie right about now.

Don't know why you say that..or even what that's supposed to mean...but somehow I feel slighted.