Dawn RitchIF THE Prime Minister's leadership weren't the pivot upon which turns the growing disaster of our lives, he would be a one-man comedic performance. He is like a stock character from a play about an African or Haitian dictator.
But Patterson may be even worse than that. None of them was a "creature of the law", as the Prime Minister has described himself in the past. By that he means only that he is a lawyer. As a Prime Minister to whom the "law is not a shackle", he breaks the laws with only slightly less frequency than he promulgates them. And he does both a great deal.
The most honourable is running out of names to call all the people, posts and entities that he keeps on creating in order to deal with our many crises. But these brief flurries of activity signify nothing, except more bureaucracy, and endless obfuscation.
Stung by the fact that the country thought it odd that he hadn't addressed in his budget the long-standing issues of corruption within the Government, Patterson subsequently called a meeting of permanent secretaries and other officers of the public sector at the Jamaica Conference Centre. Despite all the marbled extensions and enlargements to Jamaica House, it apparently still wasn't big enough to hold all the people he wanted to call for a meeting on corruption.
At this meeting he announced the development of a code of conduct to address corrupt officials in the public sector. He also announced that a senior officer will now be appointed in each entity to monitor the ethical behaviour of staff. This is all a consummate waste of time and more obfuscation.
A code of conduct already exists for civil servants. It is called the Public Sector Staff Orders, and has existed from almost forever. It's a whole book.
Permanent secretaries are more than familiar with it. They are therefore the wrong target for such a meeting. The corruption is happening above and below them, as public sector services become splintered by executive agencies, government consultants and advisors.
Those who tend not to be familiar with the Staff Orders are the recent appointments to the newly-created executive agencies. They, and others generated by the Government's new public sector reform and modernisation programmes, think they are the captain of the ship. This is what has corrupted the public sector.
YIELDED AUTHORITY TO POLITICIANS
Faced with high-powered executive directors, chairmen and advisers, permanent secretaries have effectively yielded their authority to the politicians. The politicians behave as though they are the country's administrators, instead of the permanent secretaries. Yet, under the Jamaican Constitution, permanent secretaries are the recognised stewards for the accounts and good order of the public sector. No wonder Patterson is so anxious to change the Constitution and have Jamaica become a republic. He sees Jamaica as a private company, and himself as chairman of the board. Calling permanent secretaries to such a meeting is therefore an exercise in cruelty, and a colossal waste of the country's time and money.
His proposal for a new senior officer in every public sector entity to monitor the ethics of staff is ridiculous in the extreme. It would be better if the Prime Minister gave them a chaplain instead. At least they can pray together, and beg God to rescue us from the violent mad-house Patterson has made of public administration in this country. Perhaps this was what Bishop Herro Blair had in mind when he described the meeting as "fruitful".
The most honourable is behaving in a most dishonourable fashion, and it pains me to say it. Ineffective was bad enough, but dishonourable is the bottom of the barrel. He claimed last week that taxpayers would not have to bear the tripling of cost at the controversial Whitehouse Hotel project in Westmoreland. He said that "the equity partners (NIBJ, UDC, and Gorstew Ltd.) would have to find their solutions."
Short of sticking Gorstew Ltd. with the US$60 million bill, which hardly seems likely, and even assuming this private sector firm could pay, it is a gross misrepresentation of the facts to the country. NIBJ and UDC are publicly-owned. Any bill to them is a bill to taxpayers, and money wasted by them is taxpayers' money. To have pretended otherwise while on his feet in Parliament, was both deeply disgusting and hugely funny at the same time.
SAVED THE BEST FOR LAST
But he saved the best for the last. Repeatedly asked by the Opposition benches in roughly what year Whitehouse might reasonably be expected to become viable, the most honourable got cross. He said he hadn't done the math, and the Opposition members who were asking the question could go and do the math themselves. This either means 'never', or he was just being his usual peevish and arrogant self. Either way, it was singularly unparliamentary, because the Government is expected to answer questions in the House.
Somebody must have done the math, in the same way that somebody must have done an environmental impact study on another mega-buck project of his, Harmony Cove in Trelawny.
But they neither have any idea of when, or if, Whitehouse will be successful, nor any study of what impact dredging the pond and cutting the reef for Harmony Cove's marina will have on Jamaica's environment. At least, not when I asked Kingsley Thomas about the latter a few months ago.
There are a lot of other and better places for a hotel and a marina than those sites. But people who are experts in nothing, and who ignore Staff Orders, have hijacked public administration in the country.
Public money is therefore being spent lavishly on two white elephants. The Whitehouse overrun alone could have paid the police a decent wage, and disposed of cost-sharing in schools. That they have not, must be a consequence of the most honourable behaving as though he is chairman of the board.
He is therefore constantly calling for new codes and new legislation, as though that can help us when he will not lead by example and enforce the ones we already have. The Prime Minister is wedded to the excuse that it is never his fault, always somebody else's. The hard-working people of Jamaica exist only to keep his administration in funds. The dreadful waste, the appalling corruption and the hideous burden to the people are matters of supreme indifference to him.
FOOTNOTE: Can Finance Minister, Dr. Omar Davies please publish a comprehensive list of the names of the people (and companies) to whom he's granted duty-free and duty-concessions on the import of motor vehicles since he took office? I believe it will make interesting reading.
