Paulwell up a creek without a paddle

By George Davis

The chickens, all dozen of them, have come home to roost. And they are moving their bowels from the tree branch that hangs over that section of the clothes line on which our Govern-ment has hung its finest linen.

From the moment the transport minister, Dr Omar Davies, used the courts to challenge the powers of the Office of the Contractor General (OCG) regarding its powers to demand information from an oversight panel tasked with implementing three major infrastructural projects, trouble started to brew.

Recall that the OCG, by way of a letter on May 14, 2012, announced its intention to formally commence the monitoring and investigation of the independent oversight panel. Dr Davies railed at that notice and, through the attorney general, sought an interlocutory judgment from the court to restrain the OCG from acting in such a manner. Dr Davies also sought to have the court bar the OCG from making any requests of the oversight panel or the publication of media releases related to the activities of said panel. Judgment was reserved in that matter, before Justice Lennox Campbell threw out a motion filed on Dr Davies' behalf, seeking leave to challenge the powers of the OCG before the Judicial Review Court.

That action, where not just any Cabinet minister, but a 'padrino', sought to use the court to crimp the powers of the OCG, confirmed that our Government couldn't care less about the rules, if those same rules detained it in its quest to get development moving. At that time, the message from Dr Davies was that a course of action was not to be abandoned because of objections raised by the OCG.

no massa god

After all, the OCG is not Massa God, nor has the office been consecrated as being wise beyond reproach by Massa God. That stance should have been enough for the small group of foreign entities our Government listens to and of which they are frightened to pull the administration aside and affirm that those actions can only lead to disaster. Pity they didn't, for we wouldn't be here today.

So after Dr Davies' hardihood, Phillip Paulwell was emboldened to declare that the OCG's opinion on the presence of Energy World International (EWI) in the bid process for the base generation project was barely worth acknowledging. When Dirk Harrison tabled his report on EWI in Parliament on September 17, 2013, noting that bias appeared to have influenced the entity's inclusion on the bidders' shortlist, the public waited to see what impact it would have on Minister Paulwell's modus operandi.

Not many would've expected the minister to declare a day later: "We cannot have the OCG derailing this matter again. It has to go forward." The minister was asked if he was sure that pressing ahead with the project, despite the opinion of the OCG, was the right thing to do. In a public show of the size of his bollocks, he declared, "I am absolutely sure this is the right course."

So now his bravado has resulted in the damning statement from the Inter-American Development Bank that it wants nothing to do with the project, Minister Paulwell has finally seen the error of his ways. Amazingly, he erred again by asking the OCG, the same office he had dissed, to destroy its reputation so he could protect his.

With the latest news that EWI is contemplating a legal challenge to the Government's revocation of its licence, you can understand that the metaphor of a whole lot of dung, raining down on our Government, is not an attempt at cleverness.

Ask yourself, is it mere cruel irony that a company that caused our minister to treat the OCG as if it were a stray dog passing stool on his lawn is prepared to turn around and haul the same minister to the courthouse?

I blame the foreign entities like the BBC, CNN, IMF, World Bank and the IMF. They know our Government only listens to them. They should've analysed the stench long ago and advised the administration that the best way to protect its clothing from the damage of feculence was to remove it from beneath the fowl roost.

Selah.

George Davis is a journalist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and george.s.davis@hotmail.com.