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EDITORIAL - Official corruption still rife
published: Monday | March 5, 2007
Last March, when Mrs. Simpson Miller took the oath of office as Prime Minister of Jamaica, she made a fight against corruption a central theme of her speech and suggested that this would be a crusade of her administration.
Nearly a year on, it does not require a nuanced or even a close reading of the latest report by the United States State Department on international narcotics control to know that the Americans, despite our nibbling at the edges of the problem, are concerned that corruption remains endemic in Jamaica.
The Americans do make the point that no senior government official - which we suppose means ministers, their juniors, or top bureaucrats in the administration - encourage or facilitate drug smuggling as a matter of policy. However, this is not to say that senior people in several branches of government may not be involved, but without the imprimatur of the state.
Indeed, the Americans point to polygraph (lie detector) tests, which they pay for, of police, immigration and customs officers, which suggest pervasive corruption that weakens anti-narcotics efforts.
While the State Department report has drug trafficking as its major focus, its implications are clear for other areas of national life. We may not need the United States to tell us that corruption is rife in Jamaica, or that we run the risk of becoming "a full-fledged kleptocracy" unless the government investigates and prosecutes "corrupt officials at all levels of government service". But being lectured from outside may shame us into action.
Of course, the administration will point to recent initiatives by the constabulary to fight corruption within its ranks. But as the Americans point out, this effort is directed primarily at lower-level cops. Their conclusions seem congruent with arguments previously made in these columns that Police Commissioner Lucius Thomas is not sufficiently aggressive in his campaign to drive out bad cops, and that his bosses of the Professional Standards Branch might complain less about resources and be more creative in their efforts.
But tackling corruption is a job not only for the police. Neither will it be achieved just because tough, new or enhanced legislation is pushed through policy.
To seriously go after corruption demands will - a committed and moral leadership. Which brings us back to where we started: PM Simpson Miller's pledge to root out what the Americans say, and we know to be, is a "cancerous force in Jamaica". Maybe she is working behind the scenes at it, but truthfully, we have felt nothing near the full force of the PM's charismatic capacities on this matter. And it is an issue on which she has to lead from upfront, starting with the cleansing of her party; she must shift the vision of membership as a trough of spoils to one of service for national development.
Indeed, persons whom the State accuses and seeks to prosecute for attempting to defraud it must have no place in the high echelons of party leadership. Neither should would-be dons with caravans of darkened SUVs and motorcycle outriders be close to the centres of power and official resources. Mrs. Simpson Miller must be willing to turn her face hard against the muscled and corrupt men of power and be willing to eschew old friendships andpolitical partnerships. The wind of change would soon rush from her party to all spheres of government, igniting a confidence towards aggressive action.
The mission, should Mrs. Simpson Miller choose to accept it, would result not in isolation, if that is what she fears, but the beginning of a moral renewal of Jamaica.
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