Dawn Ritch, ContributorFROM TIME to time people have remarked to me that I really seem to "like" Dr. Omar Davies. I met him only twice, and on both occasions he was perfectly charming.
Nevertheless, he has been a reckless and irresponsible Minister of Finance, and should have been removed from that office long ago. Instead Dr. Davies is actively seeking the presidency of the People's National Party, no doubt to continue looking from the inside at the mounting financial disaster over which he presides.
Politicians, both in and out of office, talk about reforming the Jamaican Constitution with this bell and that whistle, or of Jamaica becoming a republic. Yet they do not demand that the Minister of Finance uphold his present duties. His compliance alone would create good order and prosperity in Jamaica.
NO WRITTEN CONSTITUTION
The Minister of Finance sits at the fulcrum of the civil service, and under the Jamaican Constitution cannot be dictated to by the Prime Minister. This is all written down. The British have no written Constitution at all, yet they have managed themselves far better than we, who have written ours down. Having a constitution does not appear to be binding in some cases and has not helped us in the past. A new Constitution, or one that is reformed and amended, is not likely to help us either. Not anymore than the stacks of scholarly studies on the solutions to our problems that official and quasi-officials keep continuously commissioning. All are blithely ignored.
The simple act of compliance by the Minister of Finance would cure all that. Instead Dr. Davies is issuing government guarantees and comfort letters like confetti. The Constitution requires however, that he must first lay the matter before the House and seek their permission, because he is answerable to Parliament. All public expenditure can only legally take place and be legally binding on the government where these are sanctioned and approved by order of Parliament. The Finance Minister is required to seek such approval, and to make regular reports on the final out-turns to Parliament.
BY THE WAYSIDE
All of this goes by the wayside because of Dr. Davies' off-budget items. Funds are raised against bonds and are not channelled into the Consolidated Fund. The National Insurance Fund, the pension scheme of the working class, is raided from time to time to undertake speculative ventures. Guarantees given for government bodies running into the billions and billions of dollars are not laid before Parliament.
He incurs vast expenditure on a willy-nilly basis, while the Supreme Court's electricity is terminated for want of payment, the garbagemen lay down their shovels because they haven't been paid, and fires continue to ravage the breadbasket parish of St. Elizabeth for want of a fire truck with water. Dr. Davies is the very antithesis of fiduciary responsibility to the country, much less hope of good government.
Yet, the lawyerly politicians of the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party have spent the last 16 years dreaming up constitutional amendments, meeting with the government on them, and agreeing several and not a word is said to the Jamaican people about any of this. They probably took the view that since we were being impaled on the sword of PNP mismanagement anyway, we couldn't possibly notice and could safely be ignored.
Under the Constitution, the JLP Opposition can seek a vote of No Confidence in the Minister of Finance. Because there are more PNP than JLP in the House, the Opposition is not going to risk the embarrassment of losing. They forgot that they have an obligation to draw public attention to Dr. Davies' actions.
So much has already been agreed away that the current Minister of Finance thinks nothing of offering himself for the premiership of the whole island, despite the fact that he presided over the meltdown of the domestic financial sector, and foreclosures due to lay-offs and economic contraction. Nothing is said of this by Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition, except cordial phone calls every morning to the people who matter.
Who is supposed to see that the Jamaican Constitution is upheld anyway, if not the Opposition as the last resort? Does every little thing have to be sent to the Privy Council?
STATE OF EMERGENCY
The Attorney-General, Mr. A.J. Nicholson has already said on radio that he wasn't consulted on the declaration of a state of emergency before Hurricane Ivan hit. Did the Prime Minister, the Most Honourable P. J. Patterson, have only five minutes warning?
Moreover, the Constitution does not provide for a state of emergency before the event, only after. What happened to the Opposition then? They were probably too busy tinkering with a Constitution that they were going to ignore, to bother upholding the one we already have. They seem to want a new one, but will not devote the time to test the old one. Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition ought to feel obliged to ask the country's Attorney-General to investigate the situation. In the event that the Attorney-General frustrates them, the Opposition should pursue the matter through the Jamaican courts.
An example has been set, and so far remains unchallenged, that neither the law nor the Constitution is a shackle to our government. It proves that morality can no more be legislated than it can be regulated by heaven. Turning our back on a lack of compliance by Dr. Davies now, is not likely to increase government accountability or reduce waste in future.
There are rules under the present Constitution, but nobody's prepared to obey them. It is a pipe dream therefore to believe that any new or different set of constitutional regulations will cause any greater compliance. At least P. J. Patterson plans to resign this year. But the more egregious of the two seeks higher office.
