Another Hollow Speech

            Unless I’m mistaken, the very first post written in this blog was in reference to the 2012 Annual Conference of the People’s National Party, time has certainly flown as just yesterday the Peoples National Party held its 2013 national conference to culminate a month long of activities in which the PNP celebrated its 75^th anniversary as a movement having been founded by the Right Excellent Norman Manley in September 1938.

                            

As is traditional of party conferences on both sides of the political divide, the highlight of the day was the speech by Party Leader Portia Simpson Miller (who also happens to be the current  Prime Minister of Jamaica) , the speech of the Prime Minister was somewhat lacking, she focused much of the first half of her speech retracing the history of the party and its leaders from Norman Manley, his son Michael Manley and then to P.J. Patterson in which she over exaggerated the achievements made under various PNP administrations  over the many years while at the same time completely ignoring some of the failings that also happened in the same  period such as the great social-political upheavals of the 1970s and the Finsac Crisis of the 1990s which did much damage to the middle class and the productive sector, a big part of the reason why Jamaica is where it is today .

                       

                       

The latter part of the comrade leader’s speech was  just as uninspiring , the Prime Minister extended her speech by constant repetition,  glorifying the few achievements of the PNP since they retook the reins of power while failing to accept responsibility for much of the problems that are now facing the nation, choosing instead their populist tag line “it’s JLP’s fault”, how convenient of her to forget that the People’s National Party was in power for 18 years from 1989 to 2007, while the Labour Party had only a four stint from 2007-2011, there is no way that the multi-billion dollar debt that the country now has could be all JLP’s fault.  Comrade Portia in her speech missed the mark by failing to address important national issues such as unemployment, the debt burden and the crime rate, she also did not hesitate to cast cold water on those who criticized the secrecy of her dealings with the Chinese concerning the global logistic hub, though she mentioned a few points it was not enough to give anyone a real idea of what the vision of her government really was. Also surprising was her total silence on the matter of corruption, which given the scandals that are currently rocking the People’s National Party one would have expected that she would be more forthcoming on the matter yet she continues to give full support to both Philip Paulwell and Richard Azan who has now resigned his cabinet post as though they did nothing wrong (see http://jamaicatory.blogspot.com/2013/09/contractor-general-vs-pnp.html).

                      

In like manner as 2012, the Jamaican Tory must again classify the PM’s 2013 conference speech as being devoid of any real substance (see http://jamaicatory.blogspot.com/2012/10/i-really-must-comment-on-speech-given.html), a view shared by many political commentators and private sector interest groups ,The PM should take care to remember  that even though those  seated in front of her are primarily fellow comrades, her speech is broadcasted live to the entire nation in which Comrades, Labourites and all manner of other stakeholders are looking to her not only as Party Leader but more importantly as Prime Minister  to hear what plans her government has in store for the country, clearly her speech has fail to hit home with many audiences hence the reviews. 

Contractor General VS The PNP

So finally the long awaited reports of contractor general Dirk Harrison are finally out and both have been laid before parliament for consideration, the report  into the  Spaulding Market scandal  has concluded in no uncertain terms that Richard Azan, a government MP and Junior Minister acted in a most inappropriate and corrupt manner and even went as far as to recommend to the Director of Public Prosecutions that he be prosecuted for the offence, the report from the Office of the Contractor General (OCG) has described Azan as being involved  a deep web of conspiracy. And if that were not already bad enough a second report from the OCG with regards to the bids for the right to construct a major power  plant found that the Minister of Energy Philip Paulwell also acted in an inappropriate manner in order to allow an unauthorized bidder into the process well after the bidding time was over, the report from the OCG goes on to give details of meetings between the minister and said bidder giving them an unfair advantage in the entire process instead of following the rules that were originally set forth when the bid was first being announced.

Given the damning nature of these reports and the public outrage that ensued, one would have assumed that the government would at least be attempting some serious damage control in order to soothe tempers but instead the response of the administration has been anything but.  Speaking at the weekly Jamaica House press briefing Information Minister Senator Sandrea Falconer got herself into hot water with a couple journalist after refusing to say much on the issue, it later turned into an ugly spat and ended with the microphones of several journalist being cut so as to prevent them from badgering the minister who came with a prepared script which said very little on the matter and was not prepared to tolerate any questions on the matter regardless of it’s national significance.

                       

And if that was not bad enough, one should hear the response of Mr Paulwell who declared that he rejected the findings of the contractor general, the arrogant minister  went on to call the report as rubbish asserting  that the CG did not know what he was talking about in the first place claiming that he (Paulwell) will be proceeding as planned, in other words a report from Parliament’s oversight agency means very little to the minister because it did not fall in line with what he thinks it should be, this is nothing if not the most  blatant act of disrespect to the intelligence to the people of Jamaica.

                               

Similar sentiments were also echoed by Mr. Azan who claims that he had no regrets whatsoever about his part in the whole Spaulding Market fiasco claiming that those who now occupy the market are benefiting from what he did and that was politically corrupt then so be it. To be frank one can be tempted to sympathise with Azan given that his intention at the outset may have been noble, but that does not change the fact that he failed to follow procurement rules, he overstepped his boundaries as a junior minister and on top of all that he was actually collecting rent from the venders in the market which by right should have gone to the Clarendon Parish Council, if that is not the heights of corruption then I don’t know what is.

                         

This sort of arrogance has resonated with the People’s National Party ever since they first took back the reigns of power in 2012, they had often campaigned on the ground that the Labour Party was too arrogant and distant from the people, but in truth the response from these two individuals coupled with the lacked from response from everybody else in the government goes to show that the PNP is guilty of the very  thing the accuse the JLP of, who could forget the infamous statement of one PNP counselor back in April boldly congratulating Mr. Azan for his corrupt deeds and declaring that the Clarendon Parish council will be theirs indefinitely, that was beyond arrogant, delusions of grandeur would be a more appropriate term to define such utterances

The actions of both gentlemen has led to calls from all sectors of the society from them to resign or for the Prime Minister to relieve them of their post, the government is yet to respond to this. One can only hope that they will do the honourable thing and resign as is expected in such a system where accountability is key to wiping out corruption for good .

Leadership Challenge? Bad Idea

One could not have been in Jamaica and not have heard this story, after all it has been in the news for an entire week, and is one of the hottest topic of discussion right now particularly on local talk shows. There are quite a bit of rumblings going on in the opposition Jamaica Labour Party as it is indicated that Audley  “Man-a-Yard  Shaw”  might have is eyes on the top job in the party and is carrying on consultations to see whether or not he should challenge the incumbent  Andrew Holness for the leadership when the Party host it’s annual conference in November , Shaw is currently one of the 4 deputy leaders of the JLP, Chairman of Area Council Three, Member of Parliament for North East Manchester, a former finance minister and the current shadow minister of the same portfolio. Holness on the other hand is Member of Parliament for West Central St Andrew, a former Prime Minister and Minister of Education, he is also the  current Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.

Given what has been said so far it seems as though the tide is swaying in favour of the incumbent rather than the challenger, something Shaw probably did not anticipate given the recent defeat the party had faced at both local and national levels. However it seems as though many labourites are still loyal to the incumbent leader , several senior JLP MPs have already publicly declaring their support for Holness continuing as leader, Everald Warmington one of the most outspoken MPs and Chairman of Area Council Two had no qualms about publicly declaring where his loyalties lie and urged the delegates in his constituency in do likewise, while former culture minster Olivia “Babsy” Grange even went as far as to assert that any member of the JLP that wishes to mount a challenge at this time has an alternate agenda that means no good to the party or the country.

                    

Looking over the history of the Labour Party ever since it’s foundation 70 years ago, a certain trend has been noticed, since 1943, the JLP has had four leaders and none of them were elected by popular vote of the delegates of the party. The JLP was founded by Sir Alexander Bustamante to challenge the People’s National Party and others in Jamaica’s first general election that was held the following year. Although he retired for parliament in 1967, Sir Alexander remained as Party Leader while the senior deputy leader (Sir Donald Sangster and later Hugh Shearer) served as Prime Minister. In 1974 when Bustamante finally retired from the party, labourites began searching for a new leader. Shearer was not seen as the most suitable candidate given his election loss to Michael Manley and the PNP in 1972, so they turned to Edward “Papa Eddie” Seaga and he took the party in hand and lead it from 1974 to 2005, serving as Prime Minister from 1980-1989. When Seaga retired the senior hierarchy of the JLP unwilling to have the party divided by a leadership contest decided to work with who they thought was the most winnable candidate and settled on Bruce Golding who led them to victory two years later after 18 years out of government.  After only one term as JLP leader and Prime Minister, Golding also decided that it was time to go and again a succession crisis arose and the party leadership was settled in the same way as it was in 2005, this time with Holness emerging as victor, the delegates of the Jamaica Labour Party were for the most part left out.

              

Of course in all fairness one cannot blame the party leadership for all of this, the delegates too must share the blame, after all according to the constitution of the JLP, the delegates in theory have a opportunity to elect a new leader every November when conference comes around, it’s just that they have never exercised this right, that will certainly change this year and one can only wait and see what the results will be (personally I’m betting on Holness). Some have accused Man-a-Yard of trying to unseat the leader by surreptitious and underhanded means and they also claim that he has no right to mount a challenge but is being driven solely by personal ambition; of course Shaw denies these charges. These are baseless accusations, in truth Shaw has every right to challenge for the leadership and so far he has not gone contrary to the party’s constitution. That does not however mean that the decision to challenge is a wise one as the opposition surely has better things to do than internal squabbling.

                        

Overall the situation is like this, Labourites are more interested in a change of government than they are in a change of party leadership, many resent Shaw for what they see as his attempts to divide the party for personal gain (some have even accused him of being a PNP comrade for doing so), personally I think that it’s not too late for him to back down after all he has not officially announced a challenge, but in either case the Jamaica Labour Party will have everything to loose and nothing to gain if it remains divided along sectarian lines and distracted by personality issues.