By Garwin Davis, Assistant News Editor
THE JAMAICA Labour Party (JLP) yesterday said it would no longer cooperate
with the Government. This, the Opposition party noted, was in response to the
Prime Minister P.J. Patterson's failure to deal with "the rampant corruption"
in his administration.
Responding to what he called the Prime Minister's "arrogant dismissal of the conduct" of Finance Minister, Dr. Omar Davies, JLP leader Edward Seaga said the Opposition has been left with little option but to "oppose, oppose and oppose this regime until we bring it down".
"The Minister's spoken admission of recklessly abandoning the management of the budget to spend money on election projects has been totally avoided," Mr. Seaga charged. "As a result, the budget has been overspent by $15 billion above target. This will result in the most massive burden of taxation and user fees come next budget. This has been done to satisfy the PNP's lust for electoral victory."
The Prime Minister on Monday said he had seen nothing to indicate that Dr. Davies had sacrificed the national interest for partisan consideration, noting the Finance Minister had his full backing and support.
Dr. Davies said last week at a People's National Party constituency conference that before last October's General Election, the Government made public spending decisions on some major projects at the expense of other pressing matters facing the country at the time. The Finance Minister on the weekend apologised "unreservedly" for the "tone and tenor" in which he spoke.
Mr. Seaga was, however, in no mood for sympathies.
"Now that every appeal to reason and justice has failed, our decision is the only course available to seek relief from mismanagement and corruption which is wrecking all hopes for Jamaica's future," he argued. "It is not the course we desire; it is the course we are forced to take into recognition that anything which assists this Government assists corruption. The people of Jamaica should recognise this and act accordingly, providing we all act within the law."
Minister of Information, Burchell Whiteman, said last night that he had heard about the JLP's planned course of action, but that the PNP had not yet had the time to hammer out an official response.
"It is unfortunate that they had to go to the media with this at a time when the Prime Minister is away on official business overseas," Mr. Whiteman said. "It's also unfortunate that at a time when the country requires that we should all pull together, they are coming with this. The basis of their decision is flawed... I don't see the corruption they are talking about. This, in my view, is a wrong and unjustified move at this time."
Mr. Seaga said there was a time in the nation's history when political leadership not only observed the laws of the land, but prided itself on how it "observed the unwritten rules, which can be summarised by the unspoken rule of the game of cricket: it is not whether we win, but how we play the game".
"These days are long gone," he reasoned. "As the chairman of the People's National Party puts it: 'We always think that it is best for the country for us to form the administration, so anything that will lead us or cause us to be in office, we regard as being best for the country and in the best interest of the country'."
The JLP leader said the country was now divided as to whether to accept "this new dictum of political corruption as self-serving political strategy, or to reject it as a violation of the unwritten principle of doing what is fair and just as a strategy against political corruption".
