I FEEL compelled to return to the matter of the Montego Bay street people.

I am totally unable to understand the silence that has fallen upon the whole matter. For example, nothing has been heard about the four policemen said to have been involved. I find it unbelievable that after so many weeks there is no report about who gave them their orders.

I also find it unbelievable that after all the investigations which were said to have been done that we have not had even a whisper about those who were involved.

There are, of course rumours aplenty, but what we need now are facts. I get the impression that we are in the midst of a very sinister affair and that many important people and considerable sums of money are involved which the Government does not wish to be disclosed. It seems obvious that the purpose of this inactivity is to contrive that the public forget about the whole matter. Even the Press has ceased to ask questions. The whole thing is now giving off a very foul odour.

Questions for FINSAC

Concerning FINSAC, here again there are unanswered questions. In a recent poll conducted by the Observer it was said that 80 per cent of the public wanted to know more details about FINSAC's activities.

The way the results of the poll were expressed caused some doubt about its accuracy. Yet the fact remains that FINSAC should be more transparent. It refuses to give details about its debtors on the ground that there must be confidentiality between banks and customers.

This is to dodge the issue. In reality the money owed to FINSAC is owed to all the taxpayers whose money has been used for its assorted bailouts, so that the taxpayers, as creditors, are entitled to know who their debtors are and how much they owe.

In such a situation it is nonsense to say that the usual banker-customer confidentiality exists. For example, we know that Eddie Seaga and a group of PNP people are indebted to FINSAC and it seems to me that taxpayers are entitled to know how much they are owed by people whom they had voted into assorted positions of authority. There is no reason why taxpayers should not be told what action has been taken to collect it. I fancy that it is felt that if any real effort were made to collect the debts of these politicians, it might result in their having to go into bankruptcy. So what? We shall be well rid of them.

More questions

Since my column on Sunday, August 29th concerning the paralysing effect upon Jamaica of its indebtedness, I have had two letters asking why I have not mentioned the possibility of getting much cheaper finance from the IMF. I am told that the Government's refusal to ask for help from the IMF springs from a matter of colour. I do not know how true it is, but I am told that the real reason is that the Prime Minister and some others in his Government are strongly against applying to a group of white people for guidance on how to run the country, though, God knows, this guidance is much needed. If it is true that we are up against some sort of colour business, I'm sure the problem could be overcome.

The IMF and the World Bank between them must have a considerable number of black American experts in their organisations who could be sent to advise Jamaica without hurting anyone's feelings. I must admit that the American attitude to colour is decidedly crazy. In the United States you can be as white as the driven snow and yet be categorised as black if you have as little as one black ancestor hanging from the branches of your family tree. I am sure therefore that there must be dozens of black Americans, of widely assorted colours, who could be sent to Jamaica without offending our current sensitivities.

But however one looks at it, it seems to me that a Government which prefers to borrow money at anything between 12 per cent and 20 per cent, rather than at about the five per cent available from the IMF, must be regarded as needing to have its collective head examined.

A little story

One night a father overheard his son saying his prayers: "God bless mommy and daddy, granny, goodbye grandpa".

The next day the grandfather died.

Some days later the father noted the son's prayers ending words, "goodbye granny".

The next day the grandmother died.

This puzzled the father, but he got very worried by the son's next prayers, which ended with words, "Goodbye daddy".

The next morning the father got up early and went to work. He stayed in his office all day. Finally, he went home after midnight, glad that he was still alive. He crawled into bed with his wife and apologised saying, "I am sorry honey, I had a really bad day."

"You had a bad day"? his wife yelled. "The mailman dropped dead on the porch this morning."

(Taken from the Sunday Gleaner).