PRIME MINISTER Portia Simpson Miller has now had the top job in the Government for more than three months and appears to have fallen into a familiar rhythm.
She has to be careful that she doesn't fall, if it hasn't
happened already, into a rut. There is a certain clichéd
predictability about the Prime Minister's statements and there is no sense that she is willing, or ready to open new vistas to the Jamaican people.
So in her statements about being a defender of the poor, the Prime Minister has been far from specific about the projects and policies that will generate serious investment and growth and create jobs, which, in the final analysis, are the best antidote to poverty. Neither has Mrs. Simpson Miller publicly set herself and her Government tasks with a timetable for deliverables. There is, in other words, an absence of performance targets.
We, however, unlike the Prime Minister's sterner critics, prefer to give her the benefit of the doubt, preferring to believe that she is still putting her political house in order before getting down to the hard business of performance-based governance. Indeed, since the Prime Minister has been in Government for 17 years, we expect that she has very clear ideas of the problems, even if there is a lack of certitude about the solutions.
As Mrs. Simpson Miller attempts to come to grips with these matters, we wish to recommend to her a project which, if she implements with a measure of success, the vast majority of Jamaicans will be exceedingly grateful. But more importantly, it is pivotal to address the two issues about which the Prime Minister has been most vocal - poverty and corruption. Mrs. Simpson Miller should move swiftly and energetically to clean up the party which she leads.
Her predecessor as president of the People's National Party used to hide behind the veil of legalisms to do little on this front. But, it can't be beyond the capacity of the PNP president to have removed from, say, the top councils of the PNP anyone who might be charged with corruption and of attempting to fleece the State. Nor should the PM want in any entourage of the PNP or related organisation of party, candidate or officer, people of dubious reputations, whether for their past or present activities - no matter how much money they may be willing to pump into the party's or a candidate's campaign.
The PNP president must be willing to turn her face against, and if required, to stare down the hard men of violence and corruption whether inside or on the periphery of her party. She must insist, on her turf, to cut off the political leeches whose aim is to usurp state power. The question is whether the PNP president has the guts to do so. If she does, she will register a greater achievement not only for her party, but the country.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
