LETTER OF THE DAY - Restructure that expensive relic of colonialism!
Published:Thursday | March 6, 2014 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
One of the most wasteful and stupid practices of successive Jamaican governments is to establish a new agency to deal with every new problem.
Taxpayers are forever saddled with several agencies performing overlapping functions, and despite the fact that the country is now scraping the proverbial barrel to try and ward off insolvency, the logic of amalgamating agencies continues to evade us.
It is with this in mind that I overwhelmingly welcome the move to finally amalgamate the Jamaica Constabulary Force and the Island Special Constabulary Force, 20 years after the merger was recommended in a 1993 report by the Justice Lensley Wolfe-chaired task force on crime!
Is this a sign that we are finally coming to our senses? I doubt it very much, for nowhere have I heard that anyone wants to restructure that expensive relic of colonialism - the army - to serve the best interests of the Jamaican people. So I suppose we will continue to waste billions for centuries to come, although we have no empire to protect.
What purpose does a fully fledged army serve? Sure, we need a coast guard, an air wing, and an engineering corps, but shouldn't the thousands who make up the infantry be offered the opportunity to be retrained to serve and protect the people of Jamaica via the police force? Right now, these men have very little to do except act as batmen for the officer corps, and occasionally, although they are not trained to do police work, they are sent in to terrorise people in the inner cities.
While we waste money and people's lives on a redundant army, Costa Rica, situated in the midst of turmoil in Central America, abolished theirs in 1947 and diverted the resources to education. No wonder their per capita income is almost twice ours! The last time I visited there - about two years ago - a friend was able to boast that they do not do manual labour but import Nicaraguans to do all their "dirty work".
Oh, how thousands of our Jamaicans would love to get an opportunity to go there and do their "dirty work" while our Government continue to operate as a 'one-eyed man in blind man's country'!
Joan Williams