Dennis A Minott | Trustee for, or traitor to, the Jamaican State?

There is a fundamental question that every public official in Jamaica should be required to confront, preferably before taking the oath of office, and certainly before signing agreements that bind generations yet unborn: Am I serving as a trustee for the Jamaican State, or am I becoming a traitor to its future?

A nation cannot endure when those temporarily granted authority over its institutions, natural assets and public purse begin acting as if the State were personal property, a political party’s inheritance, or a vehicle for rewarding loyalists and financiers. Public office is not ownership; it is a sacred trust.

The distinction between the two is absolute. An owner asks: “What can I extract from this asset while I control it?” A trustee asks: “What must I preserve, strengthen, and transfer to those who will inherit it after me?” That single distinction ought to govern every minister, permanent secretary, statutory board member and public regulator across our island.

The Jamaican State is far larger than any sitting administration. Governments come and go. Cabinet ministers rotate, prime ministers retire, but Jamaica remains. Its soil, watersheds, Blue Mountain forests, aquifers, coastlines and mineral wealth remain. Its schools, hospitals, roads, ports and energy grids remain. Above all, its children remain, the ultimate beneficiaries of the national trust.

Yet, our political culture frequently operates on a dangerous fallacy: that winning an election confers temporary proprietorship of the republic. An electoral victory grants conditional authority; it does not grant ownership. A government possesses no moral licence to squander national resources, mortgage the future, undermine democratic institutions, hide critical data, or pursue speculative, capital-intensive mega-projects simply because it commands a parliamentary majority.

The critical question for leadership is never merely whether an action is legally permissible within existing statutes. The higher, imperative question is whether it represents sound, transparent and prudent stewardship of the public interest.

This standard is urgently required in national energy policy. Jamaica is routinely pressured to entertain proposals for imported nuclear small modular reactors (SMRs), unproven technologies whose long-term capital economics, operational risks, waste disposal burdens and fundamental unsuitability to a small island state demand cold, rigorous interrogation. A trustee does not fall in love with imported technical trends, corporate pitches or foreign narratives. A trustee asks a brutally simple question: Which strategy delivers maximum long-term energy sovereignty, resilience, environmental protection and genuine affordability for every public dollar spent?

The same fiduciary discipline must govern public education. Consider the administrative crutch of ‘pools’ timetabling, a peculiarly Jamaican affectation now spreading across the wider Caribbean. By slotting students into rigid, pre-packaged course blocks for administrative convenience, schools force bright minds to abandon vital combinations like physics with literature or chemistry with Spanish.

This practice quietly sabotages our STEM capacity, locks children out of their ambitions, and sacrifices human potential on the altar of bureaucratic ease. If Jamaican children leave school academically crippled by such structural laziness, those leading the educational enterprise cannot hide behind isolated elite achievements. The State holds the nation’s human potential in trust. Every generation of youth is entitled to an educational infrastructure superior to the one provided before it.

Nor does trusteeship end at the Cabinet table. It binds every board of directors, procurement committee, regulatory body and executive authority handing out public contracts, leasing national land, or formulating policy.

The trustee’s discipline requires relentless restraint and evidence-based rigour:

– Before committing billions in public capital to speculative energy schemes, ask whether the nation can truly sustain the burden. Before leasing or privatising natural patrimony, ask what sovereignty future Jamaicans are surrendering. Before contracting external debt, ask who will be forced to repay it.

– Before approving a major development project, ask who absorbs the risk and who extracts the profit. Before weakening oversight mechanisms, ask what protection future generations will lose. Before imposing administrative conveniences like “pools” timetabling, ask how many young futures are being quietly foreclosed.

– And, before stepping down from office, ask the most uncomfortable question of all: Is Jamaica structurally stronger and more resilient because I was entrusted with power?

This is a call for responsible, far-sighted ambition. Jamaica requires leaders capable of looking beyond five-year election cycles, leaders who recognise that genuine national development is not measured by photo opportunities, ribbon-cutting ceremonies, or theatrical policy announcements. Development is the quiet, methodical accumulation of productive capacity, institutional integrity, human capability and ecological resilience.

The patriot does not merely profess love for Jamaica. The patriot protects Jamaica, even from his or her own immediate political self-interest. That is the highest calling of public service.

For the opportunistic politician, the horizon ends at the next ballot box: Will this decision secure votes today? Can I escape accountability tomorrow? For the trustee, the horizon stretches across decades: What will this decision mean for Jamaica in 10, 20 or 50 years? Can I defend this record before the citizens of this country and before history?

That is the standard Jamaica desperately requires. We must stop viewing public office as a political prize to be captured and start treating it as a solemn national trust. The Constitution, the public treasury, our natural environment, and the human potential of our people are not assets handed to politicians for partisan disposal. They are an inheritance placed temporarily in their care.

Every trustee must eventually render a final accounting. The question for every leader is whether that record will judge him or her a trustee for the Jamaican State or a traitor to it.

Dennis A Minott, PhD, is the CEO of A-QuEST-FAIR. Send feedback to: a_quest57@yahoo.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.