The trouble with Jamaicans is that some persons and institutions vested with public authority think of it only as 'bling'. Consequently, they're constantly showing it off.

This, more than anything else, leads to misrule, a high cost of living and abuse of the rights of the people. I had three examples of that last week alone.

A peeved Greg Christie, Contractor General, wrote a letter to the Editor headlined 'Christie affirms power to investigate (Sandals Whitehouse hotel project)'. I said otherwise last week, and he replied that I was misguided.

Creature of statute

The Contractor General clearly does not understand the rule of law and that he is a creature of statute. The powers that he has are only those conferred by the statute. Any rules the Contractor General makes under the act must not infringe upon the provisions of the act. They must be within the legislation, that is, intra vires as opposed to ultra vires.

Mr. Christie took issue with what I quoted from Hansard. It was the former Prime Minister, a Queen's Counsel to boot, who reported to Parliament on May 17, 2005, and again I quote: "Joint venture companies such as Ackendown Newtown Development Company Limited were not yet characterised as being under the jurisdiction of the National Contracts Commission (NCC). It should be pointed out, Mr. Speaker, that the Contractor General Act of 1983 was amended in 1999 to establish the NCC ... Approved public sector contractors were launched in July/August of 2001. By August 2001, the project team and main contractor had already been selected for over a year."

No one disputed this, nor contradicted Patterson, not even Bruce Golding, Leader of the Opposition. The fact is also that the law was amended in 1999 to include companies like Ackendown Newtown Development Company Ltd. The amendment became law in August 2001, but certainly not retroactively. As Patterson also said in Parliament, "By August 2001, the project team and main contractors had already been selected for over a year."

I understand that Mr. Christie is a lawyer. There is nothing more devastating than lawyers who misinterpret law. They have the potential of becoming unguided missiles, since there is no law governing their actions. Pride perhaps, but not law.

The same thing seemed to have happened in the Resident Magistrate's Court in Spanish Town last week. According to another newspaper, a 15-year-old who'd just had a baby was placed in protective custody in a carnal abuse case. Her 21-year-old boyfriend was out on $50,000 bail and pleaded guilty. Her mother, also out on bail, was arrested on a charge of negligence.

Negligence

Now I'd like to know what mother can prevent her 15-year-old daughter from having sex if she wants to. Nevertheless, a mother was charged with negligence, and it seems not to have been because her teenage daughter was malnourished or underfed.

Instead, the Resident Magistrate said to the mother, "You really saying you gave her birth-control pills from she was 14 years of age because you know she was sexually active?" She added that the woman should be ashamed of herself.

On what planet does Resident Magistrate Lorna Errar-Gayle live? This remark should come from religious fanatics. One does not expect fanaticism from Her Majesty's Resident Magistrates.

It would be the height of stupidity to charge a woman with negligence because she gave her daughter birth control pills. Such a woman has acted in a precautionary and prudent manner. That can by no means be described as parental negligence. If there was something else with which she was charged, that is what the judge must reprimand her for.

It should be noted that there is a statutory defence for men under 25, if they were under the belief that the girl was over 16. Some girls at 14 could appear to a 21 year-old to be over 16.

The upshot of the court proceedings, however, was that she with her first baby, has been separated from both her mother and her 'baby father'. Whatever point is being made here, it is a baleful one and a poor reflection upon the administration of justice in Jamaica.

Justice is nowhere near in sight either at the Jamaica Public Service Company Ltd. The company reported last week that it loses US$36 million or J$2.4 billion a year in electricity theft. They absorb seven per cent of it, and tariff allows them to recover 15.8 per cent of it from bill-paying customers.

Bear in mind that this is a monopoly, the most charmed existence of any commercial life. Why should I even be interested in who steals from them, much less be charged 16 per cent more for every theft that takes place? I don't share in their profits. It is, therefore, unnatural that I should be penalised with their losses. Such additional charges on rate payers, when permitted, are an incitement to corporate profligacy and waste. It is also a licence for public penury. If there is any theft involved here, it is having their customers pay for electricity they did not consume. To extract it from us forcibly by tariff is tantamount to legalised extortion.

Hope?

When a major financial institution and a major restaurant are found stealing millions of dollars worth of light, what hope can a government pensioner have of paying his or her household bill? The higher the price goes is the more people and institutions will steal it. Soon the light bill will cost as much as a place in heaven.

This is a company that is leading the majority of Jamaicans around by the nose. And no commercial enterprise, even a monopoly, should be allowed to do that. Now that it is to be sold again, and again presumably to foreign interests, the rights and interests of the consuming public ought not be sold along with it.

The Office of Utilities Regulation over the years has merely demonstrated that it is yet another bunch of pointless bureaucrats. Anyone leaning on that wall will find that it collapses.

When it's all over, commissioners, judges, and bureaucrats traditionally send out a long letter, filled with chapter and verse of legislation, giving them permission to let an entire country fall through the net. All these missives can be cheerfully ignored. Nowhere, not even in fine print, will they ever admit that their net is full of carefully-contrived holes. That would cause their mystique to vanish and, as far as they're concerned, this is the only thing that matters.

In the meantime, the people will continue to be arbitrarily poked, prodded, and beggared. All in the name of other people's high office and monopolies.