GIVEN THE documented scope and magnitude of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) scandal and the relationships of some of the personalities involved, it is not surprising that the Jamaica Labour Party has called on the Prime Minister to break his silence and take responsibility for the debacle.
Even if what took place at the NSWMA involved no criminal activity, or even if what transpired was not corruption per se as legally defined, it is nevertheless inconceivable that when the dust settles there could be business as usual and no one castigated for the misuse and waste of public funds.
In this regard, Bruce Golding, Leader of the Opposition, has called for the Government to ban Alston Stewart, former chairman of the NSWMA, from any future appointment to public bodies as a director or in a management position in which he would have power over the expenditure of public funds.
Mr. Golding has made a number of useful recommendations designed to prevent a recurrence of the NSWMA disease which seems to be spreading like an infection in too many government institutions and agencies. We support his call to stop appointing executive chairmen of public bodies, a position which concentrates too much power in the hands of one person. His suggestion that prospective candidates for appointment as directors of public bodies should be subject to parliamentary scrutiny also has merit.
At the same time, the involvement of the Prime Minister's son in the NSWMA affair calls for balanced consideration. On the one hand, he is a highly qualified professional with a postgraduate degree from MIT and should not be denied appropriate employment because he bears the Patterson name and is the son of a person with influence. On the other hand, there appears to be some degree of ethical insensitivity in his accepting employment in a government entity whose executive chairman is a close friend and confidant of his father. In cases of possible nepotism, not only must justice be done but it must be apparent that justice has been done. Overall, the issue of Richard Patterson's employment at NSWMA is a relatively minor one which approaches insignificance in light of other egregious conduct at that agency.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
