Mike Henry was absolutely correct to sanction the decision by the board of the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC) to proceed with planned redundancies at the bus company despite last Friday's murder of its chairman Douglas Chambers.

In all probability, Mr Chambers was killed in revenge, and as intimidation, because of his efforts at wiping out the endemic cronyism and corruption at JUTC. A company with an active fleet of just over 200, half the number it used to operate, had a staff of more than 3,000, twice its requirement. The company loses nearly one and a half billion dollars a year.

Under Mr Chambers' stewardship, over 300 of the unnecessary jobs were cut. He was, very literally, on a short break from negotiations to pare away another 400 redundant posts when he was cut down.

Trough for party hacks

But the inefficiencies from overstaffing were not the JUTC's only problems. Launched by Peter Phillips when he was transport minister in the former administration, the company subsequently grew manifestly corrupt. It evolved into a trough for party hacks, many of whom, it seems, did not even have to pretend to work to claim their portion of the swill.

That was not all: the scams that siphoned cash from fare tills and the rackets that ostensibly required people to work overtime are notorious. And the protection rackets and other forms of extortion bled the operation.

In the end, the JUTC was a parody of the company that Dr Phillips talked high-mindedly about at its start when he was hounding out of existence the farce that pretended as a bus system for the capital. In a sense, the JUTC grew into a metaphor for what was worst about the previous administration.

But the idea of the JUTC is good, which is what Mr Chambers appreciated and upon which he wanted to deliver.

The parsing of his personality and this focus on his supposedly too-brash approach to trans-formation lends to a rationalisation of murder that is, frankly, perverse and dangerous - as it is, paradoxically, understandable.

Challenge to authority

For in Jamaica, where life is cheap and no one is safe, casting blame on the victim, unwittingly, is our protection; a declaration of our safety. It won't happen to us because we are not involved; we are not like that.

Well, the truth is, Mr Chambers' murder shatters the myth. Even high officials of the state are not immune from the hard men of violence.

This hit, more than any recent murder of a Jamaican official, is a direct challenge to constituted order. It is a calling out of the Jamaican state.

Which is why, it is important that the latest round of redundancies at the JUTC had to go ahead. To pause or to relent would be a concession to the parallel bosses; a further step along the route to a devolution of authority, already exemplified by the quasi-official sanctioning of peace accords between the warlords of August Town.

Each concession demands another. Soon, they will not have to agree to refrain from brandishing their guns in public. They will be the de facto rulers of the country even if their surrogates in Gordon House heartily pound the desks amid a pretence of debate over legislative matters.

If that is not to be the reality of Jamaica, then the state must take a stand.