Dawn RitchOn the day in Kingston, when three generations of the same family were fire-bombed and incinerated, screaming in their own home, and teachers from two schools marched to protest the rape and shooting of their students while at school, their parliamentary representative was off under a tent eating pork in another parish.
This callous behaviour comes from an aspirant to the presidency of the People's National Party. It comes from that utterly graceless character our Finance Minister of 12 years, Dr. "Clueless" Omar Davies. He wants to be prime minister. Perish the thought.
South St. Andrew MP
He is the MP for the constituency of South St. Andrew where these atrocities are taking place. But on that day, he fetched himself up underneath a big tent on a dry riverbed in St. Thomas.
This is in James Robertson's constituency of West St. Thomas. He was in it at the time he crashed the party under the tent. He had not been invited although it was happening in his own seat.
Billed as a tour and celebration of the restoration of the Yallahs Pipeline to Kingston, the guest list spoke volumes about another intent. Present were Dr. Davies, Finance Minister, Danny Buchanan, Minister of Housing and Water, Harry Douglas, Junior Minister in that ministry. and Richard Byles, chairman of the National Water Commission.
Dr. Davies is not the Minister of Development. What was the nature of the urgency that took him out last Wednesday to a dry riverbed? It seems to me at any rate, that he had no locus standi whatsoever in the re-commissioning of the Yallahs Pipeline. And that his time would have been better spent back in his own constituency consoling its citizens, instead of leaving his rival Mrs. Portia Simpson Miller to do so.
It matters not that Dr. Davies went to the burnt-out home before leaving for the country. It is the unsavoury disdain for human feeling that is so astounding. A media event had been arranged out in the country, and he wasn't going to miss it for a second.
James said on electronic media that there were three ministers of government, four video camera crews, three camera men and a host of public relations and communications specialists, and four-wheel drives on site. The tent was a minimum of 20' x 20' and set up equidistant from Ramble and Riverhead. The Great White Hunter was on African Safari. The bar and food were brought from Kingston, and the tent pitched. "Big Bawana" was installed.
It was also reported that the two elected PNP councillors and the PNP MP for St. Thomas, Fenton Ferguson, were not present. It seems odd not to invite them to a PNP media hype about a multibillion project being completed in their own parish. And if James heard about it, they must have too, and stranger yet, had no interest in coming.
The people present however, demonstrated the dreadful ham-fistedness taking place. The horrors in Dr. Davies' seat have been occurring for some time. The police, whom he won't pay, had been demonstrating for more pay on the Kingston waterfront only two days before. His political supporters must have hoped to present Dr. Davies in a favourable light by taking him to a dry riverbed from which to court the press.
His going should kill him politically and forever in this country. Even though it is pleasant to run for the prime ministership of Jamaica, Dr. Omar Davies had no business being there, and above all, not on that awful, awful day. It shows a want of taste that beggars belief.
'crashed the party'
James had been attending at the time, a meeting of the Yallahs Development Committee at the Yallahs Baptist Centre. His cellphones all started to ring with calls from residents asking him what was happening in the riverbed. Would it mean more jobs, they asked. So he left the meeting and 'crashed the party', because residents of the area had questions they wanted answered, and nobody had communicated with them about the day's events.
So what happened when you got there, I asked. He said "Everybody froze, like I was a lion about to attack the tent".
Not a single community representative was present. It is hard to swallow this. A pipeline is about to be recommissioned in a few weeks that will take millions of gallons of water from Yallahs to Kingston, while their own communities are without. They got jobs rebuilding, but not a single one of their number was deemed good enough to eat the pork, and drink the liquor that was there. And none of them got the work to kill the goat and cook the food which is a time-honoured custom in this country.
Did you eat, James, I asked. "I listened to them finish making their media presentation" he said "told them what I thought of their actions, and left them to their meal".
Dr. Omar Davies' public policies have already made a meal of the country and all our lives. So I really hope that's the last meal he ever takes as an aspirant to the presidency of the PNP. Because he's had quite enough already.
Here is a graceless public official doing graceless things, freely admitted, in full public view and beggaring the island in the process. It is inconceivable that he could seriously want a second bite of the cherry. He is the number two man at the top. He had his chance and blew it. Not all the prime time in the world can ever change that. If there was any doubt about his callousness before, he proved it last Wednesday. Rather than tend to the crisis in his seat, he preferred to campaign before the cameras for a presidency he should never have.
other purpose?
And if he was under that tent for some other purpose, then he must tell us promptly. Otherwise our disgust should rightly know no bounds. As it stands, he left a constituency in turmoil in order to have a Kodak moment. It makes him a world-class cad.
It is worth noting that all Dr. Davies has done for his constituency in 12 years is given them a big stadium, funded by his big friends. He also is the same one who describes his constituents as 'irredeemable'. Yet he has the temerity to want to represent the country as a whole. God forbid.
I want to know what he was doing on that tour and under that tent. And if it is true that he has a campaign office that takes up half a whole floor of the Citibank Building in New Kingston, I'll understand if he says he was just slumming it.
