THE EDITOR, Sir:
AS I read excerpts from the farewell speech to Parliament of the Most Honourable P.J. Patterson, it occurred to me that no previous retiring Prime Minister of Jamaica had been so vocally concerned to promote his legacy. I think the gentleman doth protest too much. His legacy is clear to all.
As Jamaica's longest-serving Prime Minister to date, he has presided over a Government whose waste and corruption have reached phenomenal proportions. He has trotted the globe cap in hand to lay low the pride of a country which once regarded itself as the leading exponent of self-reliance. His people have similarly been beggared to accept with pride, gifts of land titles and handouts. The institutions of government have been laid low by appointments to key positions of persons whose principal qualities have been that of loyalty rather than integrity and efficiency.
His Government has failed to protect the children, the weak and the elderly. As he has driven by with his police outriders, he has been oblivious to the poverty and degradation, so evident by the numbers of young men at the street lights begging or prostituting for a livelihood. His Government could announce with pride the receipt of the gift of light bulbs from Cuba, while the closure of the factories which once manufactured such bulbs have gone without intervention or comment.
In his last years in office, the people have cried daily for justice. They can only hope for better from his successor.
I am, etc.,
AL SEUTORIOUS
Miami, Florida
