Lessons from Olint

I have a friend - a well-respected attorney-at-law - who still believes that David Smith and Olint were sabotaged, and that if allowed to operate freely, could have continued to deliver the promised returns. Hundreds believe that if only David Smith were set free, he would be able to resume currency trading so they could get back their money.

It is alleged that irate Olint 'investors' and their families mounted a boycott that all but brought down a supermarket chain because of a family connection between the supermarket owner and an entity they hold responsible for the sabotage of Olint.

Spirit-filled, prosperity-gospel churches declared that "David Smith was sent by God to make us rich", and encouraged their members to mortgage their houses and 'invest' with Olint. They made much of the fact that David Smith was a 'Christian', and that the Holy Spirit had spoken to them, and sent them "the word" to put their money with him. Several of these prosperity-gospel churches started investment clubs which collected their members' savings and forwarded the cash to Olint. Fundamentalist prosperity-gospel 'Christians' in Canada, the United States and elsewhere sent money to Jamaica to be invested in Olint.

Now that Smith has pleaded guilty and admitted his fraud, where does this leave them, and us?

Did the Holy Spirit speak to the prosperity-gospel church leaders or not?

Spirit-filled but blind to truth?

There is irony here. Fundamentalists sometimes ridicule the Catholic Church because of our belief that our visible leader, the Pope, does speak infallibly under certain very restricted circumstances (and has done so only twice over the centuries); yet these 'spirit-filled' churches treat the words that every week come out of the mouths of their 'prophets' and 'apostles' as the infallible word of God. To disagree with these spiritual leaders is to disagree with God himself!

David Smith's admission of deception has struck a serious blow to the credibility of these charismatic prophets and to the prosperity-gospel churches. It is now an incontrovertible fact that the message was false and, therefore, the prophets are also false. Yet gullibility seems to have no bounds: I am not aware that their popularity or their membership has dropped.

It is this same blind faith that has kept so many Jamaicans wedded to political parties that take their votes, yet leave them in ignorance and poverty, while prospering themselves. If Jamaica is ever to make social and economic progress, we need to understand how this mental slavery works, for we need to be emancipated from it.

Driven by greed

Those suckered by Smith and the several other Ponzi scheme operators were driven by greed. It is this same greed that the purveyors of the prosperity gospel prey on; it is a much better church-marketing strategy to promise prosperity, than to tell people to take up their cross daily and follow him.

How is it that Smith could be brought to trial, convicted and sentenced in a foreign jurisdiction, and we have not been able to do the same here? The judicial system in the US has moved to seize the assets of Smith and Olint to be able to offer some compensation to their citizens; it is unlikely that Jamaican Olint victims will get any share of the assets seized by the US judicial system, despite the fact that alarm bells went off here years before the US judicial system took up the case.

We must be forgiven if it crosses our minds that the reason why the bosses of Olint and Cash Plus and the other Ponzi schemes have not been brought to justice in Jamaica is because they have made sizeable donations to local political parties. How many millions have they contributed? And to which party did they give more?

If only Jamaican political parties (like those in the US and elsewhere) were required by law to declare the sources and amounts of the donations they receive!

We are ending the first half-century of our political Independence with much evidence of connections between politics and criminality. How long will it take before we become mature as an independent nation, and put checks and balances in place to keep political corruption at a minimum?

Peter Espeut is a sociologist and Roman Catholic deacon. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.