Dawn RitchI hate to see a businessman's reputation being traduced in public both in the House of Parliament and on the airwaves, on the basis of mere allegation.
'Butch Stewart' is a private-sector icon, or has been so for many long years anyway. His reputation is taking a battering over Air Jamaica, and this is before any audit of the figures has been done. This column asked for such an audit seven months ago. I believe the accusation that he used the airline to enrich himself and Sandals Hotels is baseless, and that an audit will prove it.
I asked Mr. Stewart once for free first-class tickets. It was in 1999. They were return tickets from London for the Earl and Countess of Portland and their two children. I was acting at no charge on behalf of the Portland Heritage Foundation (PHF) in Jamaica. All the then chairman of Air Jamaica needed to hear was that they were representing the House of Portland. The first duke had gifted Titchfield school to the parish of Portland, which also named after them. They were the guests of the PHF at the restoration of a cottage in the town, and the launch of PHF plans for the restoration of the historicity of the town of Port Antonio. The Air Jamaica chairman agreed instantly.
I didn't have to tell him that this was the poor side of the family, because the dukedom had just died out. Nor did I have to tell him that the elderly Dowager Duchess no longer owns a single acre of ancestral lands. That was beside the point. They were the guests of Jamaica, in a good cause and he was happy to oblige.
So when the Government ever gets around to doing a proper audit of the operations of Air Jamaica under Mr. Stewart's stewardship, I wish to put on record that he did not enrich himself by flying earls, countesses and viscounts to Jamaica for free. They were guests of Earl Levy at Trident Castle who is also the chairman of the PHF. And the taxi man who drove them to Port Antonio only charged for the gas, so he did not enrich himself either. The only thing the Levys got out of it was the satisfaction of a happy school, a job well done, and an invitation from the Portlands to have lunch at the House of Lords when next in London. So they did not enrich themselves either.
a job well done
As I wrote in early last December, Air Jamaica has a national role to play, and Butch Stewart played it well. My only criticism then and now, was that inns on the South Coast didn't get any tickets. I therefore recommended strongly that they cooperate among themselves and get free tickets too for promotional purposes. Because a national airline, even one privately owned, has a duty to Jamaica to provide them.
Seats on an aircraft, like room nights in a hotel, are highly perishable items. They cannot be sold the next day, hoarded, nor reserved for government officials. Tourism lives, breathes and eats good promotion and advertising. Mr. Stewart did both at all times.
The figures went pear-shaped. But government officials chaired and sat throughout on Air Jamaica's internal finance committee to protect the people's then-minority interest in the airline. Yet the most powerful of these officials, Dr. Vin Lawrence, has since become its chairman and CEO once the airline reverted to the public sector this year. That in itself is more than a little pear-shaped. It was a debt problem in the first place, a problem that has only worsened under the Government's now full control.
JLP MP Andrew Gallimore has used a figure of $52 billion of debt for Air Jamaica. I don't know where he got it from, or whose it is, or over what period of time. But since a private citizen's reputation was involved, not only the Government's, it ought not to be too much to ask for an independent audit by reputable chartered auditors, without anybody second-guessing them, or perhaps even trying to influence the outcomes.
wrongful dismissal
The thing gets even uglier, when one realises that Mr. Gallimore was on his feet in the House of Parliament when he made his statements, and speaking from a prepared text. He lambasted the former owners and operators of Air Jamaica up hill and down valley. At no point did Mr. Gallimore declare a personal interest in the matter, and reveal the fact that a close relative of his and former Air Jamaica employee had an acrimonious lawsuit against them in the United States. Nor that the lawsuit was over what this close relative of his regarded as wrongful dismissal.
Andrew Gallimore should have done what was proper and declared an interest before, or even while making his presentation. Had he done so he could not have continued speaking, because the House would have gone up into an uproar. His was a flagrant abuse of parliamentary privilege.
Opposition Leader Bruce Golding and Butch Stewart have since entered into heated correspondence. The former jumped on national radio saying that "the last man (he) genuflected to died ten years ago (his) father." This was both blasphemous and common behaviour, unseemly in anyone aspiring to be prime minister.
The irony is that Mr. Golding did this even as a recent Don Anderson poll was showing that 60 per cent of the country view him negatively. I don't think even former Opposition Leader Edward Seaga mustered that sad record in 30 years. But his successor has earned it in just six months. This is a nightmare for the JLP, not the long hoped-for honeymoon.
First Mr. Seaga's private correspondence to Bruce got out into the press, now Mr. Stewart's has found its way there as well none of them complimentary to the new Opposition Leader on his leadership abilities. For the sake of the JLP, therefore, people are well-advised to avoid putting anything in writing to Bruce Golding.
He loves public 'bangarang' too much. Only a man who has no reputation left to lose could behave in such a fashion.
Footnote: The handcart man who ferries pedestrians across downtown streets which get flooded whenever it rains is Everton Mitchell. You couldn't want a safer driver.
