THE EDITOR, Sir:
THE NEW Jamaica Labour Party Leader Bruce Golding is proposing that an office of 'Prosecutor General' be created to prosecute offenders in the public sector where there is evidence of corruption. As so often happens, politicians hasten to create edifices and institutions, not for their contribution to improve efficiency in governance, but rather for personal glorification.
All well-thinking persons are concerned with the perceived level of corruption within the society. It is my view that it is disingenuous to try and separate public sector corruption from private sector corruption. They are inseparable. We should accept that corruption is corruption wherever it may be and that corruption 'stinks' and ultimately affects the society as a whole. We do not need any special prosecutors. What is required is a strengthening of the institution which has the constitutional responsibility to prosecute all criminal matters. Just a reminder to those who have forgotten what is the duty of the DPP: It is to prosecute all criminal matters.
ON SOLID GROUND
If Mr. Golding was proposing that the Office of the DPP be strengthened with the provision of investigators and additional prosecutors, he would be on solid ground. Those of us who watched special investigator, Ken Starr, spending years and millions of dollars trying to incriminate Bill Clinton, are fully cognisant that these special prosecutors can be instruments of partisan politics and act as persecutors rather than prosecutors. It would be a tragic error to use scarce public funds to create a 'witch-hunting institution'. That is what offices of special prosecutors are, regardless of what their titles may be.
Before the creation of the Office of Public Defender, the proposers would have us believe that upon the creation of that office, there would be greater protection for the public who did not have the resources to seek legal redress when they were improperly treated. Experience has shown that we did not need another institution.
It is indeed sad that the new leader of the JLP is yet to recognise that Jamaica needs no further addition to its bureaucracy. The objective of improved accountability must be achieved by reorganising and strengthening existing institutions where necessary, not by increasing bureaucracy. The current situation requires a strengthening of the investigative capacities of the DPP and the Contractor General. The first step towards ending corruption begins with increasing the efficiency of the machinery of governance.
I am, etc.,
LUCIUS C. WHITE
Kingston 6
