Delroy Chuck, Contributor
WHEN THINGS go right, everybody claims credit and paternity. In Jamaica, when things go awry, the buck stops nowhere. Good leaders accept full responsibility while poor leaders blame others, which is a sure measure for right thinking Jamaicans to judge the present quality of national leadership. Nowadays, throughout the length and breadth of Jamaica, things are falling apart.
For the vast majority the mounting hardship, increasing hopelessness and daily struggles to make ends meet are symptomatic of a nation in distress. Yet, for the few, especially the money traders and big businesses, Jamaica is on the right path and nothing should stop the progress.
While the billionaires and their cronies share the spoils of the government's hopeless monetary policies, which, this year alone, will distribute in excess of $90 billion in interest payments, they must wonder, in their selfish euphoria, why the rest of the country is in such a mess. Like Argentina, it is only a matter of time before the government has to make the real choice: Will it continue to deprive the country of adequate social services and other necessary government functions or satisfy its creditors in Milan, Paris and Kingston?
INCREASING MURDER RATE
The present government is failing in every responsibility it has to discharge. The increasing murder rate is a gauge of the government's failure to carry out its responsibility of protecting and securing its citizens.
When the hospitals have no drugs or few working equipment, the police stations cannot pay water or light bills, the prisons cannot afford to pay their caterers, the Supreme Court and other towers of justice are threatened with darkness and overwhelmed with work, the education of our children sinks to its lowest ebb, the roads and other infrastructure deteriorate and become dangerous to navigate, and our main industry, tourism, becomes a damaged product, we must wonder if this is not the worst administration the country has ever experienced.
But, we are being negative. The government and its sidekicks respond with much enthusiasm by asserting that the government is doing quite well, as it could have been worse - instead of four murders per day, it could have been five; instead of a national debt of nearly $800 billion it could have been a trillion, etc.
In the arena of absurdity and irrationality, good arguments have no persuasive effect and are really lost on the unthinking mind. Nowadays, government apologists and supporters blame the parliamentary opposition for the failure of government. The most reprehensible argument I have heard is that the strength of a government depends on the strength of the opposition and the corollary, it is due to the weakness and failure of the opposition why the government is weak and failing.
Simultaneously, the Opposi-tion is blamed for its policy of 'oppose, oppose and oppose' even while not acknowledging that it was Norman Washington Manley who first used that phrase when he was Opposition leader.
NOTHING WRONG WITH OPPOSING
At a recent meeting at which I was guest speaker, I had to defend the role of the Opposition by asserting that nothing is wrong with opposing, as in a democracy, it is the conflict, battle and competition of ideas, policies and programmes that ensure that the best emerges.
Jamaica is not a theocracy, which would demand that we blindly follow the policies of the government; we are a democracy that encourages the interaction, contention and freedom of ideas, arguments and criticisms.
On the Breakfast Club on Monday, February 28, I heard the most absurd argument that none of the sympathetic hosts refuted. Peter Blake, the PNP vice-chairman of Region 3, blamed MP Bartlett for the problems in August Town as he failed to create jobs for the young people and asserts that every MP should create 5,000 jobs, without conceding that the 34 PNP MPs together have not created 5,000 jobs during their tenure as MPs.
In St. Catherine, Clarendon, Manchester and St. Elizabeth, the JLP parish councils are blamed for the lack of water supply, even while the much-heralded Rapid Response water trucks are out of service, plagued with corruption and criminality, and the government has simply failed to provide the necessary funds to the councils.
OPPOSITION BLAMED
Since Hurricane Ivan, Opposition MPs are criticised and blamed for the failure to repair roads, drains, bridges, gullies and homes, in spite of government responsibility to respond and give assistance. It is time the Opposition fights back and demands that government provides the services, governs in the interests of the citizens and bears its responsibilities or, urges it to do the decent thing - resign.
Delroy Chuck is an attorney-at-law and Opposition member of Parliament. He can be contacted by email at delchuck@hotmail.com.
