Dawn Ritch, ColumnistThis is a totally ridiculous country. People are without work, five or more are murdered every day, yet the official end of the Christmas term in the national budget was taken up debating and passing a law to provide 100 per cent pensions to present and former prime ministers and their families.
This is the utmost insanity. You might as well buy them a little bubble instead, because this is as good as it gets. They live in a little bubble while they rule, and then get to go to the grave that way.
rational response
It's a rational response to the chaos around us, I suppose. But prime ministers and their families not only get to rise above it, but get to live that way in perpetuity. Smart deal when you're making it for yourself and with yourself. This has positively god-like qualities.
Not only that, but P. J. Patterson was handing it out to his predecessors for years without going to the House of Parliament for permission, as is required under our constitution. His Finance Minister, Dr. Omar Davies, acquiesced in the continued illegality of the exercise.
Not only the law is not a shackle for this egregious prime minister, he is also trying to ensure that even his own departure is not a shackle to himself either neither its date nor his hoped-for subsequent control over both the People's National Party and the governing of the country. The aspirants for succession must sign this and sign that, and agree to do the other. All this before he even announces a date either for the party selection of his successor, or his own resignation as Prime Minister. Patterson is even more arrogant than Edward Seaga, which is saying a lot. And destined it seems, to leave his party equally eviscerated and in shambles.
His pension only now comes to the floor of the House it appears, because the Prime Minister wants to regularise himself before his departure.
Free will and democracy
Regardless of how it may appear, political parties and this country are not little fiefdoms to be left to the eldest male heir. Free will and democracy still exist, no matter how much both sputter these days. As a people, we continue to aspire to them both.
The reluctance of our political leaders to recognise this is storing up a harvest of hell for the inhabitants of this island.
There are other things with which an outgoing prime minister might concern himself, instead of his pension. For instance, overcome by the sudden recognition of his 14 years of neglect of fiduciary responsibility in every quarter of public expenditure, he might perhaps spare a thought for the people, even more so at Christmas.
The Salvation Army, Red Cross and Food For the Poor, feed the poor all year long throughout the year and throughout the island. They even provide shelter. Anybody who is on the streets in Jamaica wants to be on the streets. It is these people with whom any prime minister ought to concern himself, outgoing or not.
All education has stopped, and maxims are forgotten. Chief among them is that the devil finds work for idle hands.
There is no need, therefore, for Mr. Patterson's clone, Dr. Omar Davies, to conceive of asking the Planning Institute of Jamaica to analyse the cause of crime in Jamaica. If that is what we can look forward to, should Omar become Prime Minister, tis not a happy prospect.
As a gesture overflowing with the milk of human kindness, Patterson ought to cobble together a government industry to reintroduce discipline to corner youth, and sales for them by making things that other people want. The money would circulate much better in the country. People would get a sense of pride from earning it, and crime would go down.
That observation didn't require a single committee, much less one to examine the salaries of parliamentarians.
Jamaicans could even have got Christmas work bushing roads islandwide from the middle of November. Instead, there was a demonstration by JLP mayors in majority control of the island's parish councils about not having money. And much whining about how 'Ivan' caused undergrowth, and who is going to pay them to bush the roads, much less clean the cemeteries and the gullies.
middle-class aid
The middle-class helps the poor and they are not paid to do it. They also pay a whole lot of tax and GCT, and they're still helping others. Every housewife is a volunteer school books, bus fare, the odd light bill and prescription, to say nothing of school bags and a little Christmas money. All over the island, the Jamaican people are helping each other. Why can't Mr. Patterson?
In 1936, a group of bridge players formed the Woman's Club Home, and it's still doing good for the elderly and the gentle poor. Their motto was and remains 'Not for Ourselves Alone'. Everybody in Jamaica operates on that basis, except desperate criminals and Mr. Patterson.
Old ladies have their taxi men to take them around from place to place when they need to go. The taxi men look after them and take them by the elbow. The only thing wrong with Jamaica is Mr. Patterson. He refuses to leave office until he can tie everybody's hand and foot to continued social and economic decline.
Instead of living in the pockets of those who have jobs to take out yet more and more taxes, Patterson should try to do something for the poor before he demits office. Everybody is doing it except him, his Cabinet and the Opposition. Burying the dead does not count.
