Business

Wilberne Persaud, Financial Gleaner Columnist

I'm driving along Flamingo Road in South Florida, listening to a popular Jamaican radio station in the region; breaking news: Christopher 'Dudus' Coke captured in Jamaica. That was it; there would be updates.

I've not much further to go before linking with Jamaicans young, old, visitors, Green Card holders, US citizens, dual citizens — hopefully, no illegal immigrants, no fugitives.

Afterwards, I recall discussions of these past few days among the Jamaican diaspora.

Almost invariably, conversations turned to Dudus, violence, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and Golding's ineptitude, corruption, People's National Party's unreadiness, PJ as a master politician who protected Seaga, who, in turn, is still deadweight defeathering Bruce's and JLP's wings.

Tivoli is touted as a good model, but people 'jus doan like Seaga'; that this is a time for decisiveness in the land of hypocrites. And the litany goes on.

Amid musical strains of Rasta philosophical gems and Bob Marley, debates are heated.

Dieheartedness doesn't really die. It crosses the ocean unscathed.

This is no poll of randomly selected interviewees. It is merely a recall of snippets of conversation from a pretty representative cross section of this part of the Jamaican diaspora.

Migrant communities by their very nature, at least blur, if not destroy, some of the usual divisions of class, income and colour.

One major thing emerges: Jamaicans holidaying from 'the rock' all insist Kingston is no Beirut, Northern Ireland nor the West Bank.

Strange, you say, because more than a thousand violent deaths in one year — 1,680 murders in 2009 — seems to describe a war zone.

But Jamaican visitors tell of a settled, pleasant, comfortable life - just be careful, be not stupid, for heaven's sake don't go beyond Cross Roads after dark, and try not to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Garrisons are a scourge

But when all is said and done, back home the issue is Dudus, time for decisive policy and action. Garrisons are a scourge.

That they can ever be 'good', one commentator thinks, is a myth, while the Tivoli experiment at least delivered 'justice' to its inhabitants, seems to be the view of one of our private-sector leaders.

Corruption is described as widespread, and to focus solely on the negatives associated with garrisons, dons and gully contracts is to miss a huge element of the big picture.

In a Gleaner report of June 22, Contractor General Greg Christie argues that "both the magnitude and consequences of corruption are yet to be fully understood by most Jamaicans."

He is of the view that corruption works in a "highly efficient but surreptitious manner as it criminally redistributes the country's wealth from the poor and middle classes to the connected and privileged few."

Christie goes further, suggesting we merely scratch the surface by focusing on so-called "rogue cops". A "grave mistake" he thinks, since "there are much bigger fish to fry, many of whom come in suits and in ties and occupy high places in our society.

With each passing day, they laugh their way to the bank with taxpayers' (dollars) as we make-believe that we are dealing with the problem."

In Christie's conception, a focus on Dudus alone would be to miss the big picture completely.

Note carefully that the increase in domestic and international influence — power of the Shower Posse that the younger Mr Coke is alleged to control and direct for his and his community's beneficial interest - occurred more or less in the past decade.

The political party to which he is normally thought to be aligned maintained a healthy distance from power for all of that period.

Where are the true bases or wellsprings of the economic resources from which this power emanates?

Jamaica produces no coca leaves. Dudus has not even a semblance of the power and authority once wielded by Manuel Noriega, and the CIA has no current interest in cold war-determined fights between Jamaica and others. Does anyone in this posse speak Spanish?

Another question is why the interest of the United States in Dudus at this time — read sometime in 2007 and, ultimately, August 2009?

Some shall say the US extradition request offered Jamaica a fighting chance to get our house in order, while the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips saga perhaps allowed Dudus to be taken alive.

Corruption renders all the beautiful models of efficiency and optimisation that economists so heavily rely upon, even in face of a herd of stampeding bulls with contrary messages, utterly useless.

The power of success

Transparency in political party funding, contract-awarding procedures and the like, the things Contractor General Christie and Trevor Munroe suggest we focus upon and change immediately, are the only non-negotiable steps that will offer strong, if not bullet-proof guarantees in the fight against corruption.

The beautiful thing is that, in this fight, success will simultaneously unleash the power of Jamaican creativity in the sphere of business enterprise, technology development and other areas seemingly completely unconnected.

T.P. Lecky, Bob Marley, Usain Bolt required neither patronage nor corruption to emerge. They required mechanisms that could level the playing field.

Our private sector is in no way unflawed in the current scheme of things.

The view of their Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica representative, that some of their membership may be uncomfortable with revelation of their political contributions speaks, volumes at decibel levels previously and publicly unknown.

And while we're at it, Byron Buckley, president of the Press Association of Jamaica, has it all wrong.

Jamaican journalists cannot do a "fair job in exposing corruption". They don't have the robust independence that allows for it.

They are not aligned to news organisations that require a sharp competitive edge that would sustain this.

Jamaica needs its looking glass. Dudus' episode allows us to create a big one.

Our major task is to render Alice back to normal human size, so she sees true reflections from that glass and not the Wonderland we previously enjoyed.

wilbe65@yahoo.com