Karl, what you think about renewing relations with Marc Rich

[Willi]

I am surprised that you have no comment on this point.

[Willi]

Trafigura questions remain, and now Marc Rich is back.

Trafigura decision quite sensible

Wednesday, August 15, 2007


For all sorts of reasons, we find the decision of the Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) to dispense with Trafigura Beheer BV to be a sensible one.

The fact that the decision also met the approval of the National Contracts Commission (NCC) further suggests that the necessary due diligence was done, leaving no room for the Dutch oil trading firm to take any legal action against Jamaica for ending the contract.

We say sensible because even if Trafigura had come out as the firm making the most attractive offer to trade Nigerian crude on behalf of Jamaica, selling that to the Jamaican people would have been a public relations disaster for the Government.

For one, the country, even at this time, does not know for sure all the facts surrounding the $31-million of Trafigura money which arrived in a local bank account linked to Mr Colin Campbell, the former general-secretary of the ruling People's National Party (PNP).

We were told by the PNP that the money was a donation from Trafigura. For its part, Trafigura said it was payment for a commercial transaction. Who was telling the truth? Perhaps only time will tell.

But any way that the affair is looked at, the whole thing smacked of corruption.

Had it been a donation, it would look funny because why would the ruling party be collecting $31 million from a company which the Government had awarded a lucrative contract? Was that a kickback?

Had it been payment for a commercial transaction, it would still look funny because why would the money end up in a PNP-connected account? And what was the real nature of the commercial transaction anyway?

Furthermore, the PNP told the nation that it had returned the money by means of an emissary. Trafigura said it got the money by wire transfer. So unless the 'emissary" ended up doing the wire transfer, which the Government could have done in the first place, we again have a conflicting story.

The very fact that the PNP administration could not come clean to the country and lay bare all the facts in this sordid Trafigura affair, that by itself suggests that not everything can be divulged by those in the know, without more serious fallout.

In that context, therefore, it would have been extremely unwise to renew the oil lift contract with Trafigura, no matter how sweet the deal smelled.
But even though as a country we have been left in the dark, this newspaper hopes that our politicians have learnt at least one lesson: that what they do in the dark will eventually come out into the light.

This scandalous affair will remain a big blemish on the clothes of the PNP. Their history and that of this country will show how badly they shortchanged this nation. Sacrificing Mr Colin Campbell, as they did in response to popular outrage over Trafigura, would have done nothing to change this.

We still hope that a time will come when the country will get the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It is a bad thing that occurred and we need to learn the lessons so that, hopefully, it will never happen again.

[Karl]

We have to be careful who we do business with...but, it all boils down to "how much control we have in/on the arrangements" and "returns to the country".

Marc Rich has a, from what we have heard, deserved bad name...but, the world is such a place that nations and governments are in bed with good and bad persons and entities and in some cases some downright 'vicious customers'.

Concerned...but, not overly so. I have grown over the years to learn 'how this world of ours runs' i.e. the interconnected ways governments, entities and individuals are linked. The very US government that on one hand chases Marc Rich has great ties to him through confusing series of 'intermediate entities'. ...as to relationships with outright despots and 'some nasty persons and entities' the world's so-called 'goody-goody nations' are ankle deep in the 'filth'.

[Willi]

So how come you wanted to kill Seaga over it back in the day?

LoL

[Karl]

So how come you wanted to kill Seaga over it back in the day?

LoL

Did I?
...or, was it his political foes?


My main problem with Seaga has been and still is, the introduction of garrisons...

...the other is my disgust with his economic policies which excluded the vast majority of our people from ready access to means for upward mobility.

[Willi]

Did I?
...or, was it his political foes?


My main problem with Seaga has been and still is, the introduction of garrisons...

...the other is my disgust with his economic policies which excluded the vast majority of our people from ready access to means for upward mobility.

I agree on the garrison issue and fervently disagree on the second point.
Jam was in the throes of rebuilding from the 1970s and then had to structurally adjust almost immediately after as commodity prices collapsed.

It is quite unfair to say that his policies excluded people.

[Willi]

Another thing is that we must acknowledge that garrisonization is just an escalation of earlir phenomena.

Wills O. Issacs and his rowdy gangs preceeded Seaga and his "donmanship". That is where fiah fi fiah come from. There is a clear implication of retaliation there, even if the response was out of proportion.

We spun out of control.

[Gamma]

in the immortal words of the geico caveman...."WHAT?!!!"

[Gamma]

pnp perfect the garrison culture though! must give them credit on that....when bruce tell portia that her constituency has over the years produced the most notorious over-voting in the island...her response was tepid...last election "one vote one person each time".... mi nuh know if dat include all di dead people whey did vote.....

i was told once that a constituent told (hearsay....but good source) the mp "mr so and so...mi vote fi yuh y'si? me vote an' vote an' vote suh 'til mi han' get tiyad!"

[Muadib]

We have to be careful who we do business with...but, it all boils down to "how much control we have in/on the arrangements" and "returns to the country".

Marc Rich has a, from what we have heard, deserved bad name...but, the world is such a place that nations and governments are in bed with good and bad persons and entities and in some cases some downright 'vicious customers'.

Concerned...but, not overly so. I have grown over the years to learn 'how this world of ours runs' i.e. the interconnected ways governments, entities and individuals are linked. The very US government that on one hand chases Marc Rich has great ties to him through confusing series of 'intermediate entities'. ...as to relationships with outright despots and 'some nasty persons and entities' the world's so-called 'goody-goody nations' are ankle deep in the 'filth'.

Ok, lets talk about 3-Card Tricks and Black Dawg and Monkey..

Does Marc Rich have any stake in Trafigura ?

"We put people first"

"Black Man Time"

If unnuh nuh realize, some of the most heinous crimes against black people were perpretrated by... Black People.

Emancipate yourselves from Mental Slavery.. color a blind unnuh.

[Willi]

pnp perfect the garrison culture though! must give them credit on that....when bruce tell portia that her constituency has over the years produced the most notorious over-voting in the island...her response was tepid...last election "one vote one person each time".... mi nuh know if dat include all di dead people whey did vote.....

i was told once that a constituent told (hearsay....but good source) the mp "mr so and so...mi vote fi yuh y'si? me vote an' vote an' vote suh 'til mi han' get tiyad!"

I had a PNP friend living in a PNP enclave in Span Town and the area goons told him in the 1989 elections that he did not have to bother to vote, as they had already taken care of that for him.

My friend brushed it off, but was livid as he did not get a chance to VOTE gainst Bruce and vote out the JLP.

I am sure similar stuff happened in the JLP enclaves during that same election.

These goons are sooo considerate. They dont even want you to get your finger dirty. LoL

[Gamma]

oh i'm sure that is not a pnp only practice....which lends further credibility to my statement that there isn't much to choose between them...politics as a culture has descended into some murky depths....

[Willi]

True true.

However, if I am honest, it has gotten a bit better lately.

You dont see Bruce get hug and kiss. LoL

[Karl]

i was told once that a constituent told (hearsay....but good source) the mp "mr so and so...mi vote fi yuh y'si? me vote an' vote an' vote suh 'til mi han' get tiyad!"

That was a rum bar joke back in the days! ...and, we all believed it had some truth to it...and, I still do believe...and, in this coming election we shall have persons voting more than once.

[Gamma]

well mi neva get it outta nuh rumbar and if i speak to you i will give you the source....