THE RECENT by-election in St. Ann North East is a vivid reminder that pork barrel politics is alive and well in Jamaica. The fact that it did not succeed could be a sign that potential voters have matured and are able to treat inducements for political benefit with deserved contempt.
The first indication of the pork barrel strategy was the public pronouncement by a PNP councillor, at a meeting in the hills of the Garden Parish, to the effect that the squatters of Mammee Bay South could lose all they had if the constituency returned a JLP Member of Parliament.
Road works were being carried out in the constituency at a feverish pace, even in the wee hours of the morning, during the closing days of the campaign; and a show was made of delivering pipes to areas not previously served by water mains.
The corollary to all this is that, having lost the election, the government appeared to have stopped much of the road building, and the pipes were taken away without being laid. The sequel of the reported shutdown is that the road work is now continuing and the National Water Commission says it will finish its water works.
The explanations proffered, however, at the very least lacked credibility. The Honourable Minister of Transport and Works would have us believe that road repairs asked for by tourism interests in October last year to facilitate the 2000/2001 tourist season, which started on December 15, 2000, required urgent work in the middle of the night in March 2001, towards the end of the season. And while the road project manager pleaded mechanical failures, the Information Minister said the slowdown happened because Petrojam had no asphalt.
This is not ordinary pork barrel politics, which is practised world-wide to some extent. This is our own breed of it, which feeds on a base of scarce benefits and the ramshackle of an economy in crisis.
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