THE EDITOR, Sir:

I NOTE with considerable consternation that Air Jamaica has been subjected to a US$1,000,000 fine for hashish oil which was found among luggage on one of its flights into Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. In 1983, the country was crippled by a series of onerous fines which were levied against the national airline also because of ganja and other illegal drugs which were routinely discovered on its airlines.

The Government moved with alacrity and uncharacteristic vision and established a port security corps to meet the challenges posed by these traffickers to the airlines, shipping lines and the country's economy.

The corps succeeded well beyond reasonable expectations and for the period of the 1990s, the spectre of drug finds diminished into insignificance. After the corps had taken a grip on drug-trafficking activity through Jamaica's air and sea ports, the only type of detection which persisted was the occasional body carriage. Many of these body carriers were detected and incarcerated.

In recent years, however, the position held by the corps at our air and sea ports has been consistently and systematically whittled away and minimised. The primary reason given for the replacement of government-trained and employed corps officers was that they were costing more to the users and operators to air and sea ports as compared to private security officers.

The major reason for this additional cost is because, being a government agency, these officers were treated as employees - not independent contractors. The private-security industry has foisted a legal fiction on the Jamaican labour market landscape that security officers are independent contractors and not employees. Every established common-law test and principle which determines and classifies labour contradicts this fiction. Nevertheless, it has persisted and flourished unchallenged in Jamaica. The country's border security, its national airline and the public coffers are the casualty of this practice.

Poor security product

Private-security organisations are staffed with less adequately trained personnel who are not subjected to the rigour and scrutiny of a discriminating recruitment process. They are not, therefore, able to deliver the quality security product that a properly trained cadre of personnel with institutional support from the constabulary force, the Ministry of Security and the Ministry of Transport, and with a national security mandate, can deliver.

It is my expectation that with the re-emergence of these private-security organisations as primary providers of security at our air and sea ports, and with the withdrawal or diminishing of the role of the corps, this trend of major drug finds and hefty fines will only escalate as it did in 1983. This is what happens when we refuse to learn from the lessons of history.

I am, etc.,

CHRISTOPHER O. HONEYWELL

Attorney-at-law