Lambert Brown
"Please feel free to leave the hotel and go wherever you want. It is safe to do so." These were the words of an official from the Bahamian Ministry of Labour addressing representatives from seven Caribbean countries in Freeport, Grand Bahama, on Tuesday evening. Immediately, I turned to a colleague of mine and asked if he was throwing words at us Jamaicans. He wasn't. However, the unintended contrast was evident. Before my face flashed the hope and desire that we, too, could, with the same honesty and fervour, say the same about our beloved Jamaica. I was indeed touched by the power of those words "It is safe to do so".
Recently, there was a seminar of regional trade unionists in Montego Bay, and I am sure we could not truthfully make a similar statement to our visitors. Their ability to keep their country safe is one of the reasons why The Bahamas is among the top of the regional per capita income chart and why we are way down. It is not because they are safe why they are rich; instead, they are rich because they are safe. Their people are better off materially than ours because, unlike here, over there it is safe to go out. In my mind there is absolutely no doubt that we too can be safe to go out.
The critical path to success rests largely on our leaders putting nation building above partisan antics.
Country in crisis
How can our leaders feel it more important to 'trace' and throw words, instead of seriously focusing on and tackling on a non-partisan basis, the serious issue of the high incidence of criminality that has overwhelmed our country? In any self-respecting country, 47 murders in seven days represents a crisis.
A crisis calls for the coming together of the majority of citizens to save the nation from the menacing and brazen merchants of death. They kill in daylight. They kill police officers, they kill young girls and slaughter old women. They even kill in church. No respect is shown for authority. These criminal gunmen are conscious that our leaders are more interested in partisan power games than to lead a united people in combat against them. They hear the Prime Minister curse the Opposition, that termites might be eating out their brains. They know that such statements lead to division.
Many Jamaicans hoped that the new government would have brought a real change in tackling the crime monster. Nearly 100 days after the general election, it is crime, crime and more crime! Two months after the election, the Prime Minister, in a national broadcast, tells us what we already know. He says: "A high level of crime has entrenched itself and has given Jamaica one of the highest murder rates in the world." He gives us a minister of national security to lead the fight, but Derrick Smith is proving a failure even before he starts. He tells us that the increase in crime is "mysterious and suspicious" because there is no lull after the general elections. Did he expect because his party is in power, like the magical wave of a wand crime would disappear? Well it hasn't, and it will not simply be wished away either.
People are beginning to question whether this government is up to the task of leading our country to a better life. They certainly continue to gain good marks for being the 'Opposition', but it is full time that we see some governing.
The country's progress demands a new minister of national security, less partisanship from the new government, statesmanship and a good dose of humility from our current rulers. The sweet smell of the early speeches of the Prime Minister is being replaced by the stench of arrogance. Action is often in conflict with words, trust is evaporating fast. The more Government officials open their mouths, the more the trust deficit is revealed.
It is not only with crime that we see the inconsistencies. The current imbroglio over the Public Service Commission's recommendation for Solicitor General raises serious credibility issue about the Government's commitment to inclusiveness. Having preached inclusiveness on the campaign for power, how come the members of the Public Service Commission, four of whom were awarded the honour of Order of Jamaica are to be excluded? How come a brilliant son of the soil, Stephen Vasciannie, is to be excluded?
It seems the answer can be found in a lack of sincerity on the part of the power seekers. The people were warned to be careful of those who lie either to keep or gain power. The chickens seem to be coming home to roost. The signs of exclusiveness as the approach to governance, are becoming entrenched as the modus operandi of the party in power. In the sugar industry, one trade union is being favoured over the others in ways that the trade union movement has long regarded as sowing seeds of division in the working class. The price of this could well be industrial-relations instability in the fragile sugar industry.
Jobs for party faithful
The provision of jobs for party faithful is another area where the mismatch of words and deeds is evident. Without resigning from being political candidates, Dr. Omer Thomas and Joan Gordon-Webley now hold senior jobs in the public sector. This runs counter to the campaign for good governance, which was preached in the last campaign. It was a good policy then and it should remain policy now. A.J. Nicholson's outburst about voting for Kern Spencer if people wanted water was not in keeping with good governance. It seems now that Ministers Montague and Warmington think withholding benefits for votes is good governance. The abandonment of the long-established principle of confidentiality in the budgeting process and non-disclosure of names of people providing advice to government officials is all part of the new primacy of the party which has made our country unsafe. We must put an end to this practice before further deterioration takes place. It is time for statesmanship to come forth, and allow us to feel safe to go out again.
Lambert Brown is President of the University and Allied Workers Union and can be contacted at labpoyh@yahoo.com
