Melville Cooke

When the casualty of a situation is reduced to a near or mere footnote, it is painfully obvious that it does not matter much.

That is what happened in The Gleaner's lead story on Monday, as the Trafigura millions scandal continued, where the real (and maybe only) casualties (as a Senator, Colin Campbell is hardly out in the cold) were mentioned two paragraphs from the end. It read:

"Following the revelation, an employee of the bank was fired for leaking confidential customer information. Another employee was also sent on leave to facilitate further investigations into the issue."

It was, of course, at First-Caribbean, but it could have been at any bank. And the fact that the money is to be returned, as well as Campbell having been ousted from two posts, is immaterial. Somebody has still lost their job, in circumstances that make him or her a pariah in the banking industry.

The authorities have gone to great lengths to crack the code of silence, of see and blind, hear and deaf, because bush have eye and wall have ears, around crime in this country. We have been asked to "don't hide it, tell it, solving crime pays." We have been encouraged to call 811, where there is no caller ID, no 'Star 69' feature and you the minnow don't have to give your name to those hoping to sink hooks into the kingfishes of crime, all in the name of countering the 'informer' culture.

Yet, when someone at a bank does what is certainly the right thing, despite the regulations, the continuing saga justifying the decision to leak the information, they lose their job.

How, then, can we as a nation criticise a deejay who goes on a stage and declares that 'informa fi dead?' For is not the 'informa' who disclosed the $31 million discrepancy professionally dead? Yes, they have broken the rules of banker-client confidentiality, but the person who 'informs' on criminals has broken the rules of the streets. Of course, those rules are not codified, but they are very real, because rules are the code of behaviour stipulated by those who have firepower, whether it is to fire an employee or fire an M-16.

Largely unmoved

I am largely unmoved by this Trafigura affair, as I have lived through sufficient scandals to know that a misdirected $31 million is a yawn that will soon be gone, to be followed by another. From Spring Plain to the Shell waiver, from the Furniture scandal to 'Spy Robinson', I have heard about guns, drugs, money and bathtubs. (I have never heard a sex scandal, actually, but maybe both sides of the House stand united on that meaty matter).

I know that the details will soon be lost in the general word throwing and question dodging. I know that while the PNP and the JLP might disagree on which colour must get the spoils, from Trafigura to traffic, they do not disagree that Gordon House must be the place where the spoils circulate around spoilt people. The only thing left is for Colin Campbell to put the business end of a pair of glasses on the business end of his nostrils and intone "I will be back."

I have also heard the stories of bags of cash being handed over to political leaders, source of bank notes not noted, and I am aware of which areas are virulently and violently for either of the two parties, so I am unimpressed with the mutterings about revealing the sources of campaign funding.

My only real concern is for the two bankers against whom disciplinary action has been taken.

And, pray tell, what about their superiors who knew of the Trafigura transactions and remained mum and have even taken the disciplinary action? Should we not take their morals into account, much as they take people's money?

And we wonder why, more than a decade later, FINSAC has taken care of the forgotten failed banks and no one has been to jail (lock-up), much less prison.

Melville Cooke is a freelance writer.