Paulwell, left, and Blythe
Lynford Simpson, Staff Reporter
STUDENTS of politics in their first brush with the subject, perhaps at the sixth form level, are taught the virtues of the British Westminster system of governance, off which the Jamaican Parliament is patterned.
Those who are attentive quickly come to see England as a society where, despite a Constitution that is unwritten, Ministers of Government like the ordinary citizens are held accountable for their actions.
The realisation then is that it is not so much what is contained in the Constitution but how parliamentarians and, by extension, civil society behave - everyone being responsible for his/her action. Theirs (the British) is a society where norms and values mean something.
One therefore should not be surprised that over the years, and spanning successive political administrations, British parliamentarians, both senior and otherwise, have resigned at just the whiff of wrongdoing, they quickly retreat at the hint of a scandal.
Among the most glaring examples in the last eight years are the resignations of Peter Mandelson twice, first in 1998 then in January 2001. At his second downfall, Prime Minister Tony Blair was severely criticised for reappointing his long-time friend when he was re-elected for a second term.
Mandelson first stepped down after he failed to disclose that he had secretly received a 373,000-pound loan from his then fellow Minister Geoffrey Robinson to buy a house in London.
On the second occasion last year, he stepped down over allegations that he misled the Cabinet about the extent to which he assisted Indian billionaires Srich and Hinduja in securing British passports, according to information from the BBC's online network. At the time of his resignation, Mandelson, as Northern Ireland Secretary, was regarded as "one of the Government's most influential members".
In an even more high-profile case, Jonathon Aitken, former millionaire, former Chief Secretary to the Treasury in the Conservative Government, and a man many claimed was destined to be prime minister, ended up bankrupt and was jailed after pleading guilty to perjury and making an untrue written statement during an unsuccessful libel case.
The man who once romanced the daughter of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was sent to prison for 18 months. His demise started with the question of whether an Arab businessman had paid his hotel bills during a stay at an expensive Paris hotel.
At the start of this article I made the point about our system of governance being patterned off the British model. A pattern according to the Oxford dictionary is an example of excellence; an ideal; a model. If that is the case what model does Jamaican parliamentarians embrace? What ideal do they imitate?
The fact is that there have been a few resignations and at least one firing in the last dozen years of the People's National Party (PNP) administration. Having taken over from Michael Manley in 1992, P.J. Patterson has been at the helm for 10 years.
However, judging by the example of excellence that we supposedly uphold (the British model), there should have been a few more.
All credit to Errol Ennis, albeit a junior minister in the Finance Ministry, for his decision to step down and move to Parliament's backbenches after he admitted last May to issuing bounced cheques to settle gambling debts.
Interestingly Claude Clarke, Industry and Commerce Minister in the Michael Manley Cabinet was fired in February, 1990 after he refused to issue a public statement clarifying the matter of the impact of the IMF (International Monetary Fund) agreement on basic food prices.
Mr. Manley's worry was that the impression was given that the principle of collective responsibility was not fully effective in the Government.
When one speaks of the Shell Waiver Scandal which implicated the incumbent Prime Minister, not too many people recall that Horace Clarke, then Minister of Mining and Energy, also tendered his resignation. He accepted responsibility for being the one who recommended the waiver.
Mr. Patterson's now infamous "I shall return" remark after he tendered his resignation for his part in the affair held true as he returned as Party President months later when Michael Manley stepped down as Prime Minister because of failing health. In a matter of months Patterson was Prime Minister.
The so-called Shell Waiver Scandal involved a waiver of $29.5 million in duties that Shell Company West Indies should have paid to Government on imported gasolene. Patterson at the time was Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance.
Allowing a marketing company to import unleaded gasolene served to undermine the viability of the state-owned Petrojam. As a member of the Cabinet he would have known that and therefore had no choice but to tender his resignation.
Public brawl
One other parliamentarian, John Junor, a former Tourism Minister who commanded tremendous respect in tourism circles both locally and overseas did the honourable thing and stepped down following a public brawl during which he discharged his firearm in public. He has since made his way back into the Cabinet, first as Local Government Minister then as Minister of Health, the portfolio he now holds.
His brief sabbatical from the Cabinet followed an incident on March 20, 1997 when he discharged his firearm during an altercation with political foes in Grey Ground, Manchester. Mr. Junor in his letter to Mr. Patterson said he did not wish to compromise the Government he was proud to be part of.
This brings me to two incumbent ministers of Government, Phillip Paulwell and Dr. Karl Blythe, who have more than compromised the ruling party. The former holds down the Industry, Commerce and Technology portfolio, the latter has responsibility for Water and Housing.
Both, in recent weeks have been at the centre of perhaps the biggest controversies to hit the PNP since it returned to office in 1989. In both instances, millions of dollars of public funds might have been lost forever. There have been charges of mismanagement and corruption and many have aptly labelled the bizarre events at both ministries scandals.
Neither has opted, however, to do the honourable thing and resign. And it baffles me that Mr. Patterson having himself walked that road has not insisted that the two resign - Paulwell for his part in the NetServ debacle and Dr. Blythe for his part in the Operation PRIDE, National Housing Development Corporation (NHDC) fiasco.
Equally amazing is that the Cabinet is fully supportive of the two, according to Information Minister Colin Campbell. I'm not certain this is the kind of collective responsibility Mr. Manley spoke of.
Resignations from the two would have been the decent thing to do and the party, despite the high levels of crime throughout the country and under-performing economy, might have benefited tremendously in public opinion polls which show it locked in a deadheat with the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party with a General Election around the corner.
Instead, the Prime Minister excuses Paulwell on the ground of "youthful exuberance", brushing aside the incident as "an honest mistake". And where fraud is suspected at the NHDC which manages Operation PRIDE projects which are hit with massive cost overruns, according to a report commissioned by the NHDC Board, Mr. Patterson, instead of calling in the Fraud Squad, appoints a committee to investigate the investigation that was already done. This, after the NHDC audit found that payments were being made to contractors for work not done.
There is now uncertainty as to whether Government will recover much if any of the $180 million it pumped into NetServ which collapsed within six months of the massive capital injection. With it faded the Government's hopes of creating 40,000 jobs in the information technology sector over three years. Word on the street is that equipment purchased for NetServ Jamaica but which is still in Miami was not fully paid for hence the creditors have first charge to the said equipment.
Regardless of the contents of the report of the Auditor-General who was asked to probe the Intech Fund from which the $180 million came, Paulwell should resign. That report should be made public tomorrow. Since he had not tendered his resignation when the NetServ scandal broke last December, he should have done so last Tuesday when it was revealed that NetServ Global, parent company for NetServ Jamaica, was suing the local operation over intellectual property rights owned by the local operation and for an "alleged debt" of US$3.5 million.
Instead, the Minister turned up at Parliament in the afternoon, took refugee behind his colleague Minister Colin Campbell, who as Information Minister did a poor job in both explaining how the receiver appointed by the National Investment Bank of Jamaica to manage NetServ's operations, came to settle a suit with NetServ Global for US$150,000 (J$7 million); and in fielding questions from an Opposition rightfully upset that although present in the House, Paulwell refused to offer any clarification. He promises to do so on Tuesday.
For his part, Dr. Blythe who does not miss an opportunity to remind the country of how morally upright he is, has gone about accusing a journalist who dared to write about the mismanaged NHDC of being politically motivated. He has publicly dismissed as flawed the findings of the report conducted by professionals and on which $3 million of taxpayers money was spent. Would it not have been better had he accepted some of the recommendations contained in the report which in all likelihood could have resulted in significant savings for Operation PRIDE beneficiaries?
Parliamentarians must understand that the call for their resignations when they blunder is not personal. Increasingly people demand accountability from their elected representatives. Politicians must therefore lead by example. Regardless of how many committees they establish or the level of expertise of the technocrats they appoint, when errors are made, the buck stops with the Minister. Jamaica is, after all, too poor to be making the costly "mistakes" that are seemingly made on a weekly basis.
Paulwell and Blythe by not accepting responsibility for their actions have been weighed in the balance. Both are found wanting.
