A question of integrity Dawn Ritch, Contributor
Everybody knows that the Government borrows money in the billions. Now that they can no longer borrow from Jamaican savers because they must bring down local interest rates, they're borrowing hard currency overseas and big time. The Patterson administration has also employed a novel approach to financing road-building, a deferred payment plan not a great deal unlike hire-purchase. Except that the customer really gets the television, but we don't seem to get the road. Yet both debts are for real. Take the North Coast Highway, interminably under construction it seems for the duration of this administration. Opposition Spokesman Audley Shaw, helpfully I thought, suggested in the Standing Finance Committee of the House of Representatives, that since Bosung's performance on the long-promised highway was so problematic, Dr. Peter Phillips Minister of Transport and Works, might consider terminating the company's contract and taking other action to complete the project. The responsible Minister replied that the Government could have, but firing Bosung would have affected the financing of the project. The Jamaican Government would have had to go back to the drawing board with the Japanese Government, and perhaps lose the investment, he said. This reply was given in April of this year. The public will remember that the Patterson administration's own estimate in the beginning for construction of the highway was US$45 million. Many might not remember, however, that Bosung, a South Korean company, won the contract with their bid of US$25 million. Dr. Peter Phillips is a former University of the West Indies intellectual. Intellectuals have a tendency to be slightly foolish, which can be the only possible explanation for his accepting Bosung's rationale for this excessive under bid. Bosung said, according to the Minister, that their bid was based on a desire to get a foothold in the region. Any other person would have had alarm bells ringing in his or her head. All seems to have been quiet however, in Dr. Phillips's brain. Note also that since the start of the contract there have been problems with land-acquisitions for the highway, industrial problems between the contractor and its workers, all of which stressed out Bosung emotionally and financially since it underbid from the very beginning. So the project came to a stop. Over-run Now the Government has reverted to its original estimate of US$45 million. But there have been even more delays although the project has started again, and this inevitably causes cost over-runs. Moreover, the Government is sub-contracting Bosung's work to a host of other contractors. With an operation like this, the final cost is sure to over-run even the original estimate. In his explanation for the continued ineffectual presence of the South Korean company, Dr. Phillips seemed to blame the Japanese Government. He stated in the House of Representatives that Japanese funding for the highway was tied to the use of the South Korean company. It shows just how feeble a grasp Dr. Phillips has not only on the highway, but of geo-politics. There has been no love lost in the relationship between these two countries. Not surprisingly, therefore, the Japanese Government itself has issued a denial through its local embassy. There was never any agreement with the Jamaican Government where Japanese aid was tied to the use of Bosung on the highway, contrary to what Dr. Phillips advised. The Japanese Government stated: "The Government of Jamaica received a loan from the JBIC (Japanese Bank for International Co-operation) to assist with the North Coast Highway construction project. The implementation of the project is the responsibility of the Government of Jamaica, not that of the JBIC." Don't know why Bosung has been kept on, but the reason given in Parliament was not the correct one. Moreover it could never have been the correct one. Mr. Shaw made a reasonable suggestion in the interest of minimising the debt load of citizens yet unborn in this country. It was blown off with deliberate ministerial misrepresentation, and a blameless foreign power implicated, one with which Jamaica has the most cordial relations. Is it that Dr. Phillips is just like the mad hatter from Alice-in-Wonderland, believing that a thing is so merely because he says it's so. Prime Minister Patterson agreed in a radio interview last week that the People's National Party was fortunate indeed to have Peter Phillips, Portia Simpson Miller and Karl Blythe (the order in which the names were suggested to him by Cliff Hughes, host on "Nationwide") all capable of succeeding him as party president when the time came. With the exception of Portia Simpson Miller, God forbid. Warning This Bosung issue is a measure of Dr. Phillips, and ought to be a dire warning to the mainstream of the People's National Party. Dr. Blythe, touted as another intellectual, is not however, above using provident societies as an ill-disguised ruse for the award of multi-billion dollar contracts to favoured companies, nor of giving contracts to the late "Willie Haggart" because he "... had his own trailer-head." That is a most ingenious piece of intellectual rationalisation in order to justify what most well-thinking people would regard as questionable actions. This no doubt has not escaped the Prime Minister, who has belatedly stepped in to insist that Dr. Blythe use his Ministerial prerogative to ensure that the award of multi-billion dollar Government contracts can stand the closest scrutiny in future. The Ministerial record of both Dr. Phillips and Dr. Blythe should therefore disqualify them from even daring to hope to continue in office, much less wanting the highest office in the land. On the other hand, not a finger can be pointed at Portia Simpson Miller. She would never have found herself in either situation, and this is why not only comrades, but the most ardent labourites would welcome her as Prime Minister. Audley Shaw doesn't have her popular appeal, but at least the country has come to expect that when he opens his mouth he is usually correct. Such reliability is rare in politics today, and the Jamaica Labour Party and indeed the country, is fortunate to have him in its House of Representatives. Both he and Mrs. Simpson Miller enjoy the only political reputations worth having. FOOTNOTE: I am most grateful to Blossom Samuels, acting director of the Jamaica National Heritage Trust, for providing the following information. Perhaps my friend Tony Clarke of Paradise Park would be good enough to pass it on to the American archaeologists I met there, who might now be persuaded to do some DNA tests hopefully at their expense. Ms. Samuels writes: 1. There is no evidence that the Taino buried their dead in the sea. 2. Several burials in Jamaican Taino settlements have been found including those at White Marl, St. Catherine; a cave in Carpenters Mountain, St. Catherine; Firefly and Green Castle in St. Mary. 3. The majority of Taino skeletal remains have been found in middens or garbage heaps as at White Marl and Green Castle, which suggest that this was the preferred place of burial. Archaeological evidence shows that the Tainos used ashes to cover the middens, which neutralised the smells and helped to sterilise the area. 4. Taino dead were often buried in funerary urns or pots and a number of child burials have been found in these urns. 5. Other burials were found in caves as in the case of Carpenters Mountain. This appeared to have been a suicide burial as the bodies had been laid out symmetrically and occurred at the same time. Unfortunately, we do not have any information on rituals associated with Taino burials. We hope that the above information has been of some assistance.
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