Wilberne Persaud, Financial Gleaner Columnist

Two stories cry out for reporting by the business press. They may be told differently from diverse angles. One, happenings at Olint, requires skill, experience and access of a seasoned investigative reporter.

That story is the more difficult to tell because sub judice rules may apply.

The other, however, should require neither pavement pounding nor exclusive clubhouse access and backroom chatter. Which is this story? Privatising or abandoning Air Jamaica, of course.

Over the years, huge sums have been spent in the name of the people, subsidising the airline. This model sometimes allows little or no accountability.

Losses wipe out private capital but subsidy gets paid by the people. With today's high fuel cost and recession- impacted United States economy, the airline faces big and mounting operational and financial pressures that can neither be overlooked nor confronted with the 'business as usual model'.

So why suggest there is no need for investigative skills to deal with that story?

The simple answer is: both operations and financial out-turn of the airline should be in the public domain. The books should be there, laid bare in Parliament.

Hearings should be convened informing those bearing the burden of charge on the public purse.

Contrarily, lack of transparency surrounding the airline's fate resembles lunar eclipse.

The tenor of comments from readers' knowledgeable of the field, comments quoting turbojets, turbofans, seat-kilometre capacity and fuel efficiency, as well as others less informed but nevertheless concerned, reflect this view.

Sentiment

Here is one comment revealing an apparently general sentiment: "The public doesn't have access to AJ's audited financials, and that should not be the case.

The public owns the airline and pays enormous sums to support its continuing operation. Do you get the feeling that for all the hand wringing of our politicians, they like the status quo?

I expect better from Don Wehby, and haven't given up hope on the young man just yet.

Despite several moves which invite questions about his judgement (sic), I hope innate decency will win out, and he will invite public participation as more than just bankrollers.

Fed on manure

As things now stand, the airline's owners are being treated like mushrooms ... kept in the dark and fed on manure."

Interesting comment with humour in the tail.

I honestly could not answer this reader's general question about politicians, but am on record in complete support of someone with Minister Wehby's revealed competence and skill set, available for service in government.

His task is unenviable, complex and difficult. He can't please everyone and shall obviously take some flak according to the maxim: no good deed goes unpunished.

But here's the point, neither politician nor technocrat can create by wave of a wand, the foreign exchange to pay Air Jamaica's mounting debts.

Any attempt to provide it by running Bank of Jamaica printing presses guarantees our economy a fate too hazardous to contemplate.

Something must be done. Question is what and should it be done in complete secrecy.

Some think this is best.

Nevertheless, there are strong arguments to support publication of the material elements that have cost the taxpaying public so much.

Extraordinary challenge

This is not to pick scapegoats or play blame games. It is to confront an extraordinary challenge with measured analysis and balance.

At the end of the day, at least we could figure that we made the best choice-even if from an available array of only bad to worse options! Without recourse to notions of freedom of information and philosophy to justify transparency, politicians of whom the reader speaks, stand to gain much, perhaps major, political capital in taking the public into their confidence as they go about, in good faith, making what for them has got to be a hard decision in almost impossible circumstances.

speculation at fever pitch

Turning to Olint, speculation is at fever pitch and tidbits in the local press, reports of frozen assets, rumour-fuelled discussions at home and abroad, depression among folk contemplating life separated from their savings, all leave us with little to consider as verifiable fact.

This is a pity.

Yet for what it's worth, a few key questions: does the investment club have the capital to repay its members once courts decide? Can members survive a protracted legal skirmish taking years to settle?

If the club is being investigated for activities defined as suspicious by different jurisdictions but retains capital to cover all existing members' contributions, shall this be confiscated upon a decision that any, even a minuscule part of its activity was indeed unlawful whether by omission or commission?

Do claims that big business interests conspired and acted against Olint have any validity? There are reported claims by the principal of the entity and innuendo, but no one seems able to provide definitive answers.

What role human greed and gullibility?

Seems to me unravelling this storyline is necessary. It is also the stuff of prize-winning business reporting even without the gut-wrenching human drama/trauma; and if we choose to learn, should serve us well in future.

Premier of Turks and Caicos Islands, Michael Missick (left), and Olint's David Smith at January's Air Jamaica's jazz and blues festival. TCI authorities have frozen Olint's assets. - File

wilbe65@yahoo.com