Trevor Munroe | Keep the message: Change the ‘frustration policy’

Does the 70 per cent of Jamaica’s electorate not voting on February 26 means “voter apathy”… that the 70 per cent don’t care? Among the many who believe that the 70 per cent don’t care, I am not one; nor is Prime Minister Holness among that number. Recall his words to Cliff Hughes on March 1, a few days after the election: “Not coming out sent us a message… people are frustrated with Government policy.” I concur.

In my opinion, a large part of that 70 per cent is “frustrated” with Government policy, practice, and behaviour that:

1. Privileges highways over “byways”, leaving the vast majority of our rural people to ‘batter batter’ on neglected dirt tracks, so-called farm roads, very often within a few metres of multimillion-dollar highways.

2. Continues to give away contracts and taxpayers’ money to contractors who get awards, no longer disclosed, and often illicitly. The roads they claim to have fixed, within a couple days, the patches are washed away, along with our money, after a few showers.

3. Disadvantages the standard of living of the majority. Jamaica is now ranked in the bottom half, number 99 of 163 countries globally, in terms of Commitment to Reduce Inequality (See Oxfam/DFI/Commitment to Reduce Inequality Index) In the Commonwealth Caribbean, this ranks our policies behind Belize, Guyana, St Vincent, Antigua and Barbuda, St Lucia and Trinidad and Tobago, in terms of addressing levels of inequality.

4. Widens the wealth gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’. The World Inequality Index places Jamaica’s wealth gap as wide as Haiti’s and above the United States. Our 1 per cent at the top controls 20 per cent of the national wealth and the top 10 per cent, almost 50 per cent. (World Inequality Index, 2022)

5. Breaks promise after promise, many given before and during election campaigns and some repeated even afterwards. One such recently is the commitment to pass the Unexplained Wealth Order, to strengthen the Proceeds of Crime Act. This tool would help to catch big fish, not only small fry, amongst the corrupt. This commitment repeated by the Governor General in his February 2023 Throne Speech: yet still nothing done in the parliamentary year 2023-24. Our investigators, prosecutors and judges remain deprived of this tool to help track, charge, prosecute and jail, when found guilty, the money launderers and the corrupt, in high places.

MESSAGE OF ‘FRUSTRATION’

At the same time, as we the 70 per cent Jamaicans, are not ‘coming out”, sending a message of ‘frustration’, others, many international big people, are sending an opposite message to the prime minister and to the minister of finance. There is a message, not of frustration, but of warm greetings, of exhilaration and even celebration. The media headlines speak volumes. A little over one month before our 70 per cent sent our message of frustration, the Financial Times sent theirs: “the IMF’s fave pupil, [Jamaica], gets a gold star” (January 19). Similarly, while our satisfaction with government policy was decreasing, Jamaica’s rating with international creditors was going up – successively, Moody’s, Standards and Poor’s and Fitch, a week after the February 26 election. The signal is that Jamaica, with its frustrated Jamaicans, is increasingly becoming the gold-star for creditors and for investors. Nothing is wrong with this as long as we the people can also benefit. Transform the policy of frustration to one of inclusion. We, the people, must drink milk and honey too, and not suffer the continuing frustration of sucking salt through a wooden spoon.

We the people, and whoever in the cabinet, among the government backbenchers and the Opposition who have ears to hear and eyes to see, must change the frustration policy before things further deteriorate. The root of this policy is not hard to find. Peter Tosh told us, almost 50 years ago: “Everyone is crying out for peace but ain’t going to be no peace… until men get equal rights and justice.” Those of us who forget Peter Tosh may heed the words of Pope Francis 10 years ago in his Encyclical Joys of the Gospel, “The earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few” Pope Francis continued: “Inequality… spawns violence. Until exclusion and inequality in society and between peoples are reversed, it will be impossible to eliminate violence. No political program or resources spent on law enforcement or surveillance systems can indefinitely guarantee tranquility because the socio-economic system is unjust at its root.”

UNJUST SOCIO-ECONOMIC SYSTEM

Policy, globally and nationally, must now address this root cause, an unjust socio-economic system. People are willing to work hard to skill themselves, to produce more, but only to the extent that they are included and not excluded, respected, and not disrespected, granted ‘equal rights and justice.’ Such transformations are not likely to fall like manna from heaven. Those who stand for equal rights and justice, whatever colour or class, religion or church, youth or elder, man or woman, ‘green’ or ‘orange,’ must now redouble our efforts.

Limited efforts have brought limited results. The 70 per cent ‘not coming out’ has sent a message, but the February 26 elections have gone. Before the 2025 general elections come, and after they have gone, “not coming out” must be replaced by “coming out”: to call talk shows, make social media posts, write letters to the newspapers, form citizens’ groups, make representations to our MPs and to Parliament to:

• Hold any remaining ‘Warmingtons’ and any other ‘Meadows’ to account. As such, insist on the Code of Conduct for MPs and Ministers being confirmed, publicised, strengthened, and enforced. Additionally, demand that the law to impeach MPs for misconduct proposed by Prime Minster Bruce Golding in 2010, and reintroduced by Opposition Leader Mark Golding in 2023, be debated and passed.

• Intensify the fight to bring the corrupt, particularly the big fish, to justice. The promise to pass the Unexplained Wealth Order must be kept. The identities of the ‘illicit 6’ MPs must be disclosed so that the public who may have information can come forward to confirm or to contradict allegations that they are enriching themselves at our expense.

• Insist that offending directors and responsible officers who are consistently breaking the law by failing to report annually on what public bodies are doing and how they are spending billions of dollars of taxpayers’ monies, be brought before the courts to answer charges.

• Give the Electoral Commission of Jamaica and the Office of the Public Defender the protection of the Constitution, as promised in each of those laws. Make them less vulnerable to any autocratic dismantlement from any prime minister or parliamentary majority so minded.

• Require that either the prime minister or the Integrity Commission tell the Parliament, and us the people, why the prime minister’s income, assets and liabilities cannot hitherto be certified. Our prime minister must be encouraged to live by his word “Prevent actions that weaken public trust and damage the integrity of the government.” (September 7, 2020)

On February 26 the 70 per cent sent a message by ‘not coming out’. Between now and 2025, send the same message this time, by ‘coming out’, speaking out and standing up. To end or reduce our frustration, we have to demand transformation to policies of inclusion, upliftment, and integrity. Let us not only recite our national pledge, to stand up for ‘justice, brotherhood, and peace.’ Let us also practise what we preach.

Professor Emeritus Trevor Munroe is the founding director of National Integrity Action. Send feedback to info@niajamaica.org or columns@gleanerjm.com.