Dawn Ritch, Contributor
THAT HIGHLY controversial figure, Alston Stewart, who has had such a corrosive effect upon the public purse, has been reinstated to the post of political campaign manager for Dr. Omar Davies. Stewart is again to become the Finance Minister's main 'prosperity ambassador', part of a so-called 'Campaign for Prosperity'.
This theme is absurd. Dr. Davies has made a thorough-going wreck of the Jamaican economy and the nation's quality of life, it hardly seems likely therefore, that he's going to get up one morning and suddenly start to behave differently.
Things may be prosperous and worldclass for Dr. Davies and his cashy campaign team, but always at the expense of good governance and the majority of Jamaicans. The Finance Minister likes nothing better than meetings abroad with foreign investment bankers from whom he borrows and borrows without let up. They like him, too, but they love his fat commissions even more.
NOT CORRUPT
I'm neither shocked nor surprised that he has brought back Stewart. When he was at National Solid Waste Management Agency (NSWMA), the garbagemen couldn't get paid, but he still found a way to blow $2 billion in a manner that circumvented every tenet of accountability.
Like the old chief justice in the 1970s who judged certain of Michael Manley's actions, we are asked to agree that what Stewart did was not corrupt. The minister responsible, Portia Simpson Miller, decided however, not to take it as read, and sent the files to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
At the very minimum, a man like Dr. Davies, who parades himself about as the island's paragon of virtue and integrity, ought to conclude that Stewart is not a 'fit and proper' person to be associated with his campaign.
I remember the Finance Minister making a big song and dance about Jamaicans only being allowed to buy entities being divested by Government if they were 'fit and proper persons' and had 'deep pockets'. Half of these rules appear not to apply to Dr. Davies or his cronies, when he is about his own personal business.
KEY FIGURE
Stewart was a key figure in the construction of what has become known as 'Scandals Whitehouse'. The project had a phenomenal cost over-run.
According to reports from the hotel's operators, everything is breaking up inside. They need only have added that two-footed crocodiles are swarming all over the place as though it were their nesting ground.
The make-up of the Whitehouse construction team included Dr. Vin Lawrence, chairman of the Urban Development Corporation; Ashtrom in which he is reported in another newspaper to have an interest; Jentech Construction Ltd. in which Vin Lawrence is the managing partner, and included Dr. Wayne Reid as structural and civil engineers on the project, who is also a partner in Jentech and the managing director of Highway 2000, Sabina Park, and the Greenfield development in Trelawny.
KSA or Steve Ashley was the electrical subcontractor and also a former member of the board of directors of NSWMA. The Minister of Tourism's brother supplied the fixtures, furnishings and equipment for Whitehouse. The quantity surveyors and consultants were Goldson, Barrett and Johnson with strong People's National Party (PNP) connections.
Despite the deepening controversy over who got what and why out of Scandals Whitehouse, Stewart has been given the job to make Sabina Park ready for World Cup Cricket.
This is an extensive construction project worth many, many millions of U.S. dollars.
And let us not forget the controversy over the building of Hedonism III in which Stewart also featured prominently as project manager. The project went to arbitration and his competence was questioned.
His presence on any public project is likely to be precursor to a monumental waste and shoddy workmanship. From that point of view, I suppose it qualifies him more than most to manage the political campaign of Omar Davies.
Indeed, it could be said that Stewart is uniquely suited to the post. He is merely yet another public demonstration by our Finance Minister that the ends justifies the means. So it was in the beggaring of the country in order to have $2 billion in net international reserves. And so it is in his quest for the prime ministership of the country.
The divestment of Caymanas Park falls under the Minister of Finance. The time has come, therefore, for Dr. Davies to make a clean breast of things and tell the country to whom he plans to sell it. Is it true that Stewart is a major stakeholder in the preferred bid, the same bid that was earlier rejected when he was not part of it?
Caymanas Park is such a big operation that it is a significant generator of the island's gross domestic product.
Is Mr. Stewart to become the owner of same, or is he just fronting for somebody else? If either were true, it would merely be symptomatic of the gigantic pork barrel into which Dr. Davies has turned the public finances of this country.
Bearing in mind how huge a divestment Caymanas Park is, this must be handled with complete transparency. Anything else would be the most shocking corruption yet seen in an administration already riddled.
NEW LEVEL OF ARROGANCE
The reinstatement of Stewart as his campaign manager marks a new level of arrogance for Dr. Davies. Even someone as wrong footed as he must understand that to place such a controversial man at the centre of his campaign raises serious questions about his own suitability for any kind of public office.
They say that birds of a feather flock together, that show me your friends and I'll tell you who you are. In Stewart, it seems to me that Dr. Davies has at last found his own level. And it's going to carry him straight down the political drain.
It is reported that Stewart will be in charge of field operations for Dr. Davies. This can only mean that the Finance Minister finds himself so flush with campaign financing that only he can be relied upon to waste it in ways too numerous to mention among the party delegates.
Or perhaps that all the money in the world which Dr. Davies now finds at his disposal is still not enough to give him any traction among the delegates of the PNP.
In that scenario, Stewart becomes his grass roots connection. He is there to christen pork as chicken, so that it can be eaten by those who set their faces against swine of biblical proportions.
This latest move by Dr. Davies is certain to dismay all who still cling to hope for change in Jamaica.
