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What's taking the OCG so long?
Published: Wednesday | July 31, 2013 4 Comments
Dirk Harrison seems to be on the slow boat to China.
At the time of writing, it's been 147 days since the contractor general, Dirk Harrison, announced that his office had opened a probe into the involvement of state minister for transport and works, Richard Azan, in the Spaldings market affair.Since the Office of the Contractor General opened that probe on March 6, Mr Harrison issued one media release on June 17, assuring the public that he and his team were working assiduously to complete a report. He has since made no comment on the matter.
When Dirk Harrison started his probe of the Spaldings affair on March 6, the governor general had not yet presented the Throne Speech. The Budget Debate had not yet begun and not a dumb word in boredom or tedium had yet been uttered in the annual snooze-fest that passes for the Sectoral Debate.
For Dirk Harrison to be probing a matter that drags on for longer than it takes the majority of the country's 63 members of parliament to speechify and allow their constituents to watch them on television takes some doing indeed. But that, dear children, is what the goodly gentleman has done.
When the OCG probe started, it was costing as much as $14 per minute to make calls across mobile phone networks, and Doran Dixon had not yet pronounced that a ministerial mongrel was no match for the lion-hearted pusses of the Jamaica Teachers' Association.
Since the Spaldings probe started, Mr Dixon was chastised and then scratched from the list of candidates for the presidency of the JTA. There was time enough for him to threaten a lawsuit if his name was not reinstated and then proceed to trounce his rivals after the hierarchy of the teachers' lobby realised it had no grounds to block his candidacy.
All the episodes of that soap opera awkward kissing and all, were played out for public viewing, and still no report has been forthcoming from Dirk Harrison and his team. Since the probe started, the national security minister prayed at a church in Mandeville for divine intervention to fight crime and has seemingly been told a flat no by the man upstairs.
JACK QUIT AND RETURNED
When Dirk Harrison started his probe, Austin 'Jack' Warner was a minister of government in Trinidad and Tobago, MP for Chaguanas West, chairman of the United National Congress and bosom buddy of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar. Since the probe began, Warner was effectively sacked by Kamla, resigned as MP and chairman of the UNC.
He then formed a new party, campaigned for the Chaguanas West by-election, and gave a royal backsiding to his challengers at the polls held on Monday. All these things have happened since Dirk Harrison and his team took on the behemoth assignment of probing whether Richard Azan acted improperly or acted corruptly in the building/renting of shops at the Spaldings market.
When Dirk Harrison started his Spaldings probe, Egypt had a democratically elected president steering the country's affairs. That president has since been ousted by an army, led by the general hand-picked by the same president to take up the job a year earlier.
A man named Edward Snowden leaked details of the United States' secret surveillance programme, then fled to Russia via Hong Kong, where he has been holed up in a transit lounge begging the enemies of Uncle Sam to offer him asylum.
Since Mr Harrison's probe of the Spaldings affair started, the Queen has become a great-grandmother, former Italian President Silvio Berlusconi was sentenced to prison, Sir Alex Ferguson retired from football management, and Ariel Castro was just a regular, though slightly creepy guy, living in a boarded-up house in Cleveland, Ohio.
At the rate at which the OCG is working, one may take on the assignment of bailing out the Caribbean Sea, using a teaspoon, and complete that task at or about the same time this office is likely to produce a report on the Spaldings market matter.
Given that the OCG is an office empowered to demand, not request, the compliance of public officials as it pursues an investigation, it boggles the mind as to what could be taking Mr Harrison and his team so long.
Selah.
George Davis is a journalist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and george.s.davis@hotmail.com.
Published: Wednesday | July 31, 2013 4 Comments
Dirk Harrison seems to be on the slow boat to China.
At the time of writing, it's been 147 days since the contractor general, Dirk Harrison, announced that his office had opened a probe into the involvement of state minister for transport and works, Richard Azan, in the Spaldings market affair.Since the Office of the Contractor General opened that probe on March 6, Mr Harrison issued one media release on June 17, assuring the public that he and his team were working assiduously to complete a report. He has since made no comment on the matter.
When Dirk Harrison started his probe of the Spaldings affair on March 6, the governor general had not yet presented the Throne Speech. The Budget Debate had not yet begun and not a dumb word in boredom or tedium had yet been uttered in the annual snooze-fest that passes for the Sectoral Debate.
For Dirk Harrison to be probing a matter that drags on for longer than it takes the majority of the country's 63 members of parliament to speechify and allow their constituents to watch them on television takes some doing indeed. But that, dear children, is what the goodly gentleman has done.
When the OCG probe started, it was costing as much as $14 per minute to make calls across mobile phone networks, and Doran Dixon had not yet pronounced that a ministerial mongrel was no match for the lion-hearted pusses of the Jamaica Teachers' Association.
Since the Spaldings probe started, Mr Dixon was chastised and then scratched from the list of candidates for the presidency of the JTA. There was time enough for him to threaten a lawsuit if his name was not reinstated and then proceed to trounce his rivals after the hierarchy of the teachers' lobby realised it had no grounds to block his candidacy.
All the episodes of that soap opera awkward kissing and all, were played out for public viewing, and still no report has been forthcoming from Dirk Harrison and his team. Since the probe started, the national security minister prayed at a church in Mandeville for divine intervention to fight crime and has seemingly been told a flat no by the man upstairs.
JACK QUIT AND RETURNED
When Dirk Harrison started his probe, Austin 'Jack' Warner was a minister of government in Trinidad and Tobago, MP for Chaguanas West, chairman of the United National Congress and bosom buddy of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar. Since the probe began, Warner was effectively sacked by Kamla, resigned as MP and chairman of the UNC.
He then formed a new party, campaigned for the Chaguanas West by-election, and gave a royal backsiding to his challengers at the polls held on Monday. All these things have happened since Dirk Harrison and his team took on the behemoth assignment of probing whether Richard Azan acted improperly or acted corruptly in the building/renting of shops at the Spaldings market.
When Dirk Harrison started his Spaldings probe, Egypt had a democratically elected president steering the country's affairs. That president has since been ousted by an army, led by the general hand-picked by the same president to take up the job a year earlier.
A man named Edward Snowden leaked details of the United States' secret surveillance programme, then fled to Russia via Hong Kong, where he has been holed up in a transit lounge begging the enemies of Uncle Sam to offer him asylum.
Since Mr Harrison's probe of the Spaldings affair started, the Queen has become a great-grandmother, former Italian President Silvio Berlusconi was sentenced to prison, Sir Alex Ferguson retired from football management, and Ariel Castro was just a regular, though slightly creepy guy, living in a boarded-up house in Cleveland, Ohio.
At the rate at which the OCG is working, one may take on the assignment of bailing out the Caribbean Sea, using a teaspoon, and complete that task at or about the same time this office is likely to produce a report on the Spaldings market matter.
Given that the OCG is an office empowered to demand, not request, the compliance of public officials as it pursues an investigation, it boggles the mind as to what could be taking Mr Harrison and his team so long.
Selah.
George Davis is a journalist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and george.s.davis@hotmail.com.
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