IF IT does materialise that the directors of the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) were to resign in the face of the report by Contractor General Greg Christie on the fiasco at Sandals Whitehouse, it would be most welcome and refreshing.
It is unfortunate, though, that the Prime Minister has yet to make a grand, bold and forthright announcement on this issue.
It was bad that Mrs. Simpson Miller should have declared to reporters on Wednesday afternoon her inability to offer even a preliminary comment on Mr. Christie's report, because she had not had the opportunity to review it.
We do not make this point merely to carp at the Prime Minister. Rather, it is an important observation that goes to the heart of governance, our expectation from the leader of the country and of the overall management of national affairs.
In this regard, it is important that the full context of this situation be understood and embraced, the first of which is that the Sandals Whitehouse affair is not one that sneaked up on the Prime Minister. After all, the controversy over who was responsible for the more than $2 billion overrun on the hotel project and the claims of cronyism and corruption against government agencies and former public officials have been ongoing for more than a year.
Moreover, the Government and its agencies are subject to a major lawsuit by Mr. Gordon 'Butch' Stewart's Sandals Resorts International, arising out of the controversy. And not only has the Whitehouse issue arisen in Parliament on several occasions, but on Wednesday this newspaper published a photograph on its front page, showing Mrs. Simpson Miller and two of her ministers, Dr. Omar Davies and Mr. Phillip Paulwell, poring over Mr. Christie's report in the House.
By now, therefore, Mrs. Simpson Miller should be in a position to have formed even an initial opinion on the Whitehouse saga and how this would inform her views on cronyism and corruption in Government, and how she intends to respond to this perceived rot in the management of public affairs.
Even if the stench that now assaults Mrs. Simpson Miller is not from Whitehouse or the flagrant breaches of the Government's procurement rules, or lack of ethical sensibilities perceived there by Mr. Christie, the PM might have assured the Jamaican people that it was her intention to find its source and excise the cancer, whoever the eventual amputee.
This approach and a public declaration about the booting of the UDC board would help to build public confidence that the Simpson Miller administration dares to be different and that it is not her intention to play around the edges, hemmed in by old loyalties and faithfulness to the party. If gods and icons are to fall, then so be it.
It would do Mrs. Simpson Miller well to reflect on her personal popularity and the expectations she carries. Being liege to the poor and dispossessed is well and good. But the cause of the poor is best protected in some practical ways, one of which is to ensure that what is theirs is not stolen or wasted. Which, unfortunately, is the claim at Whitehouse.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
