Dawn RitchSPORT JUST leaves me cold. I cannot stand competition, and cannot imagine why anybody would do it for fun.
As far as I'm concerned, only a nut case sponsors a sports team and thinks it is good public relations, worse still when it is a company.
Sooner or later comes that time when the company's name appears in a headline followed by the word 'defeated', 'lost' or 'beaten'. Worse yet it could be 'trashed'.
Good public relations does not get your company's name trashed. Therefore, no team in any sport should be named after you or your company. It is a guarantee that you'll look shabby.
MASTERPIECE OF TAUTOLOGY
A sports stadium? Well that's a well-known white elephant in anybody's language. An usually forthcoming Dr. Omar Davies in Parliament, (barring of course when he simple-mindedly boasted that he'd 'run wid it', referring to public expenditure during an election year) used the word 'maintain' three times in one sentence. He was talking about the huge public expenditure of US$100 million on two new sports stadiums in Jamaica.
It was a masterpiece of tautology. He said in answer to questions about hoped for revenue (only US$9 million from ticket sales): "Once you have established facilities at that level, for example the National Stadium, then you are in a position in the future to maintain it as long as you don't let it run down. You have a national asset, which you then need to maintain."
It needs a copious amount of education to be able to talk so circuitously. All this beating around the bush means that it costs a fortune to create two 'national assets' that will cost another fortune to maintain. If the country manages to maintain them, something for which we've shown no aptitude, we may be able to earn money from them one day.
I think Dr. Davies knows that maintenance is out of any budget he's ever cast, except maintenance of the ever-growing national debt. To that we have now added all the accoutrements of the island hosting Cricket World Cup 2007.
With all that expense, schools in the area had better close. We need every dollar of that US$9 million. The Government needs no excuse to tell us that they made only US$780,000 after the event. Even now, they must be polishing their excuses.
If you're an optimist like me, then you thank God for Robert Bryan, managing director of Jamaica Cricket 2007.
When the upgraders of Sabina Park, Ashtrom Construction Limited, began to moan and groan about cost overruns already in the US$ millions, and the danger of late completion, Mr. Bryan said he'd sue them for 'liquidated damages'.
In a very matter of fact tone, he named the many ways, and it was all carried on public television.
After that, Ashtrom delive-red to him their long-overdue construction schedule.
The other cricket stadium being constructed is in Trelawny. There, Complant, the Chinese firm responsible for this project, decided the construction under the purview of the Jamaicans was falling behind schedule.
The Jamaican workers rioted when they came to work one day and found the work site all changed up and the Chinese pressing at their backs. The Chinese workers on site had to flee for their lives.
One Chinese can do the job of five Jamaicans we always say. So the sight of them on their part of the project must have filled the Jamaicans with gloom.
The other thing we've always known about in Jamaica is 'the spiraling costs of extended site time'. It is the ruin of every budget when there is one, and there seems to be one in the preparation for World Cup Cricket. That, and a deadline. So cheers to Mr. Bryan and the Chinese.
In the case of the Jamaica Public Service Company now owned by Mirant, there is neither deadline nor budget.
Having sharply overcharged its customers in November 2004, it is only now reporting in April 2006 that these customers have finally been reimbursed.
In my opinion, such a claim ought to be audited independently by a technical agency given comprehensive access to their meter-reading and billing. Now there is a company that deserves to sponsor a sports team.
ILLEGAL CONNECTIONS
The company also proudly reported that in St. Mary it had nabbed a dentist with an illegal connection amounting to $160,000, a large farm with an illegal connection amounting to $1.5 million, and a juice company with one amounting to $7.9 million.
I would have thought that the profile of the illegal connectors would have sent Tony Rae, director of its external affairs, running into the internal affairs of JPS.
Something must be wrong with their billing structure when not only tenement yards, but dentists, farms and factories have to steal electricity in order to survive.
These offenders might as well be arrested, because they won't be able to earn a living without electricity.
Mr. Rae says JPS lost more than $2.6 billion last year due to electricity theft. I'm surprised it's not more because the rates charged by that monopoly invite public and private abuse.
Same thing with taxes. General consumption tax and special consumption tax were down last Christmas, and below projections.
When that can be down at Christmas in Jamaica, you know the tax burden is too great. Jamaicans have reached their taxable limit, and JPS which is that other tax upon us is just getting to the beginning of their troubles. Both they and Dr. Davies are long overdue for a consciousness-raising session.
The Jamaican people do not exist solely for their delectation. We have rent to pay, families to feed, and old age to save for because the Government will not.
Only last week it was announced that $1 billion is to be taken out do the National Insurance Scheme to fund a small business development programme.
The money will be lost almost certainly, and even if it is not, it will not be repaid. And all this while pensioners are paid a paltry sum from the NIS, the pension pool made up of their own lifetime contributions. It beggars belief.
Between ensuring adequate pensions and proper child support, the Government could halve the murder rate because of a decline in domestic disputes.
But we'd rather give the nation's savings away to the politically-connected and watch cricket.
