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'Cut contracts with crooks'
Published: Thursday | May 27, 2010
Dionne Rose, Business Reporter
The Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) yesterday called for the Government to cease the awarding of state contracts to
business with reputed criminal partners and associates.
The PSOJ has also recommended that political parties stop accepting donations from tainted individuals and entities. it views this as the first steps to the dismantling of political garrisons - communities where voter partisanship is enforced by violence or intimidation.
"We must strongly support the contractor general's recommendation that legislation be enacted to ensure that businesses competing for government contracts subject themselves to significantly more stringent criteria," said Joseph M. Matalon, president of the umbrella business group, while addressing its 22nd annual general meeting at Knutsford Court Hotel in New Kingston yesterday.
Matalon was outlining a raft of measures which were recommended by the PSOJ Standing Committee on National Security as strategies for tackling crime and violence, especially in light of the days of urban warfare which have crippled the capital's commercial district.
He pointed out that it was an open secret that there were businesses with umbilical links to the criminal underworld that had morphed into "so-called legitimate enterprises" and were able to project a veneer of legitimacy.
"We must support the plugging of the obvious loopholes, such as subcontracting, as a means of avoiding fit and proper scrutiny," he said.
The PSOJ's demands came against the backdrop of allegations that reputed gang boss Christopher 'Dudus' Coke had links to the Presidential Click and Incomparable Enterprise, the latter having received multimillion-dollar contracts.
The police are engaged in a manhunt for Coke.
Insisting on transparency
Matalon said his members would also be insisting on transparency in the financing of political parties in a bid to ferret out compromised individuals and entities.
"As a demonstration of good faith and transparency, both political parties should commit, at the very least, to annually turn over their list of contributors to the political ombudsman to demonstrate that they are not receiving contributions from known or reputed criminals and are, therefore, not beholden to these characters," he said.
Matalon, however, wants both political parties to go further by ridding themselves of those among their ranks, and particularly those seeking election as parliamentary and local government representatives, or any individual, who, by his or her past or current deeds, can't be held up as a person of integrity.
He also encouraged the House of Representatives to push through anti-crime bills which, he said, had been "languishing" in Parliament.
These bills, he said, included the strengthening of wiretapping legislation to allow the intelligence collected in judicially authorised wiretappings to be more readily entered as probative evidence in court.
Other legislation, Matalon said, which needed to be implemented are amendments to the Bail Act, passing omnibus post-arrest processing legislation to permit the fingerprinting and photographing of all persons charged with violent offences, and legislation for the collection and storage of the DNA of persons charged with violent offences for repeat offenders.
"Implementing tougher, more effective RICO-type anti-gang legislation, as, given the threat to the very existence of the Jamaican state presented by the mushrooming growth of criminal gangs, the PSOJ believes that only the toughest measures will suffice," he said.
RICO - the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act - represents United States federal laws, passed in 1970, which crack down on racketeering.
dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/glean...ead/lead4.html
Published: Thursday | May 27, 2010
Dionne Rose, Business Reporter
The Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) yesterday called for the Government to cease the awarding of state contracts to
business with reputed criminal partners and associates.
The PSOJ has also recommended that political parties stop accepting donations from tainted individuals and entities. it views this as the first steps to the dismantling of political garrisons - communities where voter partisanship is enforced by violence or intimidation.
"We must strongly support the contractor general's recommendation that legislation be enacted to ensure that businesses competing for government contracts subject themselves to significantly more stringent criteria," said Joseph M. Matalon, president of the umbrella business group, while addressing its 22nd annual general meeting at Knutsford Court Hotel in New Kingston yesterday.
Matalon was outlining a raft of measures which were recommended by the PSOJ Standing Committee on National Security as strategies for tackling crime and violence, especially in light of the days of urban warfare which have crippled the capital's commercial district.
He pointed out that it was an open secret that there were businesses with umbilical links to the criminal underworld that had morphed into "so-called legitimate enterprises" and were able to project a veneer of legitimacy.
"We must support the plugging of the obvious loopholes, such as subcontracting, as a means of avoiding fit and proper scrutiny," he said.
The PSOJ's demands came against the backdrop of allegations that reputed gang boss Christopher 'Dudus' Coke had links to the Presidential Click and Incomparable Enterprise, the latter having received multimillion-dollar contracts.
The police are engaged in a manhunt for Coke.
Insisting on transparency
Matalon said his members would also be insisting on transparency in the financing of political parties in a bid to ferret out compromised individuals and entities.
"As a demonstration of good faith and transparency, both political parties should commit, at the very least, to annually turn over their list of contributors to the political ombudsman to demonstrate that they are not receiving contributions from known or reputed criminals and are, therefore, not beholden to these characters," he said.
Matalon, however, wants both political parties to go further by ridding themselves of those among their ranks, and particularly those seeking election as parliamentary and local government representatives, or any individual, who, by his or her past or current deeds, can't be held up as a person of integrity.
He also encouraged the House of Representatives to push through anti-crime bills which, he said, had been "languishing" in Parliament.
These bills, he said, included the strengthening of wiretapping legislation to allow the intelligence collected in judicially authorised wiretappings to be more readily entered as probative evidence in court.
Other legislation, Matalon said, which needed to be implemented are amendments to the Bail Act, passing omnibus post-arrest processing legislation to permit the fingerprinting and photographing of all persons charged with violent offences, and legislation for the collection and storage of the DNA of persons charged with violent offences for repeat offenders.
"Implementing tougher, more effective RICO-type anti-gang legislation, as, given the threat to the very existence of the Jamaican state presented by the mushrooming growth of criminal gangs, the PSOJ believes that only the toughest measures will suffice," he said.
RICO - the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organisations Act - represents United States federal laws, passed in 1970, which crack down on racketeering.
dionne.rose@gleanerjm.com
http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/glean...ead/lead4.html
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