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Ken Chaplin
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
There is growing concern that the inequitable distribution of scarce benefits and spoils and the award of contracts, between $250,000 and $4 million, almost exclusively to supporters of the PNP, are going to widen the division among a significant number of people. All this in addition to blatant, rampant corruption in government and misplaced priorities. This could lead to social upheaval as happened in Mugabe's Zimbabwe.
In any government department or agency, the staff from top to bottom is dominated by PNP supporters, including hardcore activists. The easiest way to land a job is to take a letter from a PNP member of parliament or councillor along with your application. It is a tight system, tighter than what was proposed in the establishment of the Pickersgill accreditation committee in the 1970s, which would have to approve the appointment of all applicants to the public service. There was much opposition inside and outside the public service over the appointment of the committee.
I remember being in a group of public servants who went to the University of the West Indies with others to take an examination which would determine whether we remained in the public service. When we reached the venue we were told that the examination was cancelled. That was the first attempt to indoctrinate public servants in socialist ideology, but it failed.
The PNP, if it retains power, must end discrimination against non-supporters, and if the JLP gains power, it should not practise discrimination in any form against PNP adherents. Strangely enough, I have not heard any of the political parties committing themselves to end discrimination in jobs and the award of contracts which divide the people and fuel political violence. The biggest pork barrel is in cost overruns on large construction projects where some excesses are funnelled into election campaigns. The JLP has announced a workable plan to deal with corruption in government.
Many years ago while visiting Jamaica, Barbados' Prime Minister Owen Arthur said that any government that takes care of only half the population, or words to that effect, is courting trouble. Of course, some people in the PNP adminisration at the time did not like the comment, but it was well said.
In the meantime, the Office of the Contractor General continues its efforts to bring probity and transparency to government contracts which are entered into by parliamentarians, an issue which can be traced back to 1994 when the contractor general was Mr Gordon Wells. The present contractor general, Greg Christie, is concerned that very little progress has been made. In 2006, he reactivated efforts in the matter by writing to Parliament for it to consider and respond to three proposals. These proposals were intended to secure the disclosure of the particulars of government contracts in which parliamentarians and related persons - for example, a spouse, mother, father, sister, brother or child of parliamentarians - are parties.
The contractor general has made several requests to Parliament for information about the award of contracts to related persons without a satisfactory response which led him to state: "That the continued failure to address the critical deficiency leaves the contract-reporting requirements open to indirect circumvention and thus to an eventual undermining of the principles of transparency and public scrutiny which the Office of the Contrator General feels must be led by the Cabinet and the Legislature."
Christie has also indicated that he is of the fervent belief that if transparency and public confidence in the award and procurement system are to be effectively secured, there can be no better way of achieving this than for parliamentarians themselves, as servants of the people, to hold up their own commercial transactions with government, together with those of the immediate relatives, to the light of public scrunity.
It seems to me that parliamentarians on the government side should be setting an example in this matter. The dodging of the Office of the Contractor General by parliamentarians, as well as the continued irregularities in government, the award of contracts and breaches in the procurement of goods and services, places Jamaica on the road to becoming an 18th century banana republic, where certain laws, rules and procedures are ignored by the government in many areas. This situation heightened under the 15-year administration of P J Patterson.
We know of the frustration of the contrator general and the auditor general because the government has delayed debating their annual reports and will not support them.
There is only one answer: change the law to enable the fraud squad of the police force to investigate and bring criminal charges against those who break the regulations. The fact is that irregularities are costing the country billions of dollars every year - money which is needed for education and health care. It needs only a few honest men in government with the will to bring about the change, but these are hard to find.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
There is growing concern that the inequitable distribution of scarce benefits and spoils and the award of contracts, between $250,000 and $4 million, almost exclusively to supporters of the PNP, are going to widen the division among a significant number of people. All this in addition to blatant, rampant corruption in government and misplaced priorities. This could lead to social upheaval as happened in Mugabe's Zimbabwe.
In any government department or agency, the staff from top to bottom is dominated by PNP supporters, including hardcore activists. The easiest way to land a job is to take a letter from a PNP member of parliament or councillor along with your application. It is a tight system, tighter than what was proposed in the establishment of the Pickersgill accreditation committee in the 1970s, which would have to approve the appointment of all applicants to the public service. There was much opposition inside and outside the public service over the appointment of the committee.
I remember being in a group of public servants who went to the University of the West Indies with others to take an examination which would determine whether we remained in the public service. When we reached the venue we were told that the examination was cancelled. That was the first attempt to indoctrinate public servants in socialist ideology, but it failed.
The PNP, if it retains power, must end discrimination against non-supporters, and if the JLP gains power, it should not practise discrimination in any form against PNP adherents. Strangely enough, I have not heard any of the political parties committing themselves to end discrimination in jobs and the award of contracts which divide the people and fuel political violence. The biggest pork barrel is in cost overruns on large construction projects where some excesses are funnelled into election campaigns. The JLP has announced a workable plan to deal with corruption in government.
Many years ago while visiting Jamaica, Barbados' Prime Minister Owen Arthur said that any government that takes care of only half the population, or words to that effect, is courting trouble. Of course, some people in the PNP adminisration at the time did not like the comment, but it was well said.
In the meantime, the Office of the Contractor General continues its efforts to bring probity and transparency to government contracts which are entered into by parliamentarians, an issue which can be traced back to 1994 when the contractor general was Mr Gordon Wells. The present contractor general, Greg Christie, is concerned that very little progress has been made. In 2006, he reactivated efforts in the matter by writing to Parliament for it to consider and respond to three proposals. These proposals were intended to secure the disclosure of the particulars of government contracts in which parliamentarians and related persons - for example, a spouse, mother, father, sister, brother or child of parliamentarians - are parties.
The contractor general has made several requests to Parliament for information about the award of contracts to related persons without a satisfactory response which led him to state: "That the continued failure to address the critical deficiency leaves the contract-reporting requirements open to indirect circumvention and thus to an eventual undermining of the principles of transparency and public scrutiny which the Office of the Contrator General feels must be led by the Cabinet and the Legislature."
Christie has also indicated that he is of the fervent belief that if transparency and public confidence in the award and procurement system are to be effectively secured, there can be no better way of achieving this than for parliamentarians themselves, as servants of the people, to hold up their own commercial transactions with government, together with those of the immediate relatives, to the light of public scrunity.
It seems to me that parliamentarians on the government side should be setting an example in this matter. The dodging of the Office of the Contractor General by parliamentarians, as well as the continued irregularities in government, the award of contracts and breaches in the procurement of goods and services, places Jamaica on the road to becoming an 18th century banana republic, where certain laws, rules and procedures are ignored by the government in many areas. This situation heightened under the 15-year administration of P J Patterson.
We know of the frustration of the contrator general and the auditor general because the government has delayed debating their annual reports and will not support them.
There is only one answer: change the law to enable the fraud squad of the police force to investigate and bring criminal charges against those who break the regulations. The fact is that irregularities are costing the country billions of dollars every year - money which is needed for education and health care. It needs only a few honest men in government with the will to bring about the change, but these are hard to find.
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