Editorial | Of conflicts, rules and plane rides

ANDREW HOLNESS is not the first Jamaican prime minister or political person to have either hitched a ride, or been invited to be a guest on the private aircraft of a rich person to attend an occasion outside the island, for which the Jamaican Government is not paying.

That Mr Holness is not unique in this regard does not mean that there ought not to be a serious debate over the potential for conflicts of interest when such things happen, and what guard rails should be put in place to ensure the integrity of public officials and protect the taxpayers' interest.

Which is why Robert Morgan, the de facto information minister, missed the mark in attempting to paint a picture of grand virtue in the fact that the Government's only contribution to the prime minister's January trip to The Bahamas, for the reopening of the Royal Bahamian Spa Resort, was the US$380 per diem Mr Holness' delegation received.

Royal Bahamian is part of the Sandals International Resorts chain, one of the world's great hotel brands, which was founded by the late Gordon 'Butch' Stewart, a pioneer in the all-inclusive hotel business. That company is now managed by Mr Stewart's son, Adam Stewart.

Sandals is the largest owner of hotel rooms in Jamaica, and is perhaps the biggest private employer of labour in the island. Sandals also transcends its Jamaican roots. It owns hotels across the Caribbean. It is a regional champion.

In that regard, Mr Holness, like his colleague prime ministers in the territories where Sandals operates, has a certain coincidence of interests with the company. Sandals' success and growth is likely to be beneficial to Jamaica and the region – when it expands it employs more people and, if it is profitable, it presumably pays more taxes. It makes sense, therefore, that if Sandals – or any other significant legitimate business operator in Jamaica – invites Mr Holness to a function, he would make the best effort to attend, especially if it is inside the island.

NECESSARY BOUNDARIES

Nonetheless, there are necessary boundaries in the relationship between private firms and the persons who manage the State and the public bureaucracy. Rightly, the primary obligation of private businesses, even when they are nationalist in outlook and their success redound to the national good, is to maximise profits for their shareholders. A state that adheres to the principles of the free market establishes policies that allow firms to be successful without – except in specific, well-defined and limited circumstances – any group having an advantage over its competitors.

Transparent policies are the first line of defence on this front. It is, however, also important that officials who police these arrangements have limited wherewithal to corrupt them for personal enrichment, or political or other gain. Indeed, the integrity of markets is one of the counterfoils of a liberal democracy. Corrupt overseers surrender democracy to special interests and deep-pocketed people. Clear rules benefit all sides.

That is why countries often institute fail-safe mechanisms and institutional guard rails to make public officials less susceptible to corruption by special interests and more accountable to the public. These systems best thrive in transparency, with rules on which everyone is clear.

The fact that enterprises or businessmen who own aircraft flew the PM or the leader of the Opposition or a senior civil servant to some destination for a specific function may, on the face of it, be of no great moment; economic values would be inherent in those trips. They would not have been costless undertakings. In another scenario, the transportation may be private in nature, the services rendered a private holiday, from which the Government gained no specific benefit.

SPECIFIC POLICIES NEEDED

This raises the possibilities of quid pro quo and questions of in what circumstances the Jamaican State and Government should accept certain gifts and services from private individuals, and how these should be accounted for, especially when the immediate benefactor is a specific individual.

For instance, while a head of government, in accepting a plane ride may appear to have acted pragmatically, does that action afford the offer or undue influence, and possibly advantage, over competitors – or the perception thereof? Jamaica's 2002 code of conduct for ministers implores public officials to avoid conflicts of interests, but speaks in broad sweeps, rather than offer specific rules.

Given the recent developments, there is an obvious need for specific policies – beyond the generalities of the ministerial code of conduct or clear criminal behaviour covered by the corruption laws – of how political officials should respond when faced with certain situations.

In some jurisdictions, certain gifts to ministers and/or their meetings with private interests have to be recorded in the publicly accessible registers, which lend to transparency. That is one idea to consider. In the event, Jamaica must urgently begin a discussion, leading, in short order, to clear policies and prescriptions on matters relating to the management of the Government that are not now captured in the regulations of the Integrity Commission.