Ronald Thwaites | The runnings …

“Sir, your papers are lost, you know. The officer who was dealing with such matters resigned. The best thing you can do is to submit a new set of everything.”

My gentleman had applied more than a year earlier to a particular government agency for a permit needed to start a business involving significant foreign investment and employment. His partners abroad and the local bank who had advanced start-up expenses were now at his heels demanding performance.

“Submit everything again?” That would mean more cost and waiting at least another year and courting investor fatigue. “What would it cost to make a special search for the file?” The $750,000 price tag was paid in cash the next day and the file was found the same week.

“Report the corruption to the head of that department or failing him to the Minister,”I hear you intone. Not likely, my businessman would reply. “All I want is to get out of these people’s clutches.”

COMMONPLACE

This is a true story. Paying a ‘tax’ for a public service is no longer the exception in Jamaica nowadays. In many instances it is normative. Ask the professionals who deal with government departments. And not just them. Try yourself to get a utility connection, a bail application approved, a license granted, a title approved, a plan pre-checked, development compliance certified, within any reasonable time without “letting off”.

Rules and the remote possibility of sanctions alone won’t improve conduct and reduce corruption. Commonly held ethical standards and morals are essential. “If Big Man can rule even when his business don’t certify, what about little me?” The perception that the political class and glitterati are a bunch of money and power-hungry scrapers sets the worst example.

WRONG PRESUMPTION

The implicit presumption beneath Nigel’s big bump-up of public sector salaries was that better pay would mean greater productivity and less graft. Inflation and the lack of energy, absent a shared ethic of struggle toward inclusive progress, have proved that wrong. Soon the electorate will have the opportunity to decide whether the big splash which elected representatives donated to themselves, has resulted in better service.

INCORRIGIBLE

Right now, the bigger the project or the more urgent the permit, walk with up to an extra half-a-million in the likely event you will need it. Saddest of all, there is very little if anything that any political administration, on its own, can do about this racket. Who will give evidence ? Why is it next to impossible to dismiss an appointed public servant anyway?

ACCOUNTABILITY

Although pay-offs are routinely done on a person-to- person basis, it would certainly help if ministries, departments and agencies were rigorously audited against transparent and exacting service standards. Why do you think this doesn’t happen now? Municipal corporations have been under scrutiny last week. Just asking: how many are up to date and on time with their audits?

WASTE PRODUCES POVERTY

Once again, my contention is that Jamaica does not suffer so much from a shortage of resources as from the calcified, ineffective, anti-common good, ill-considered priorities, high-chest use, of what we have.

WHAT’S THE TRUE STORY?

Which leads to a consideration of the nation’s current financial situation. Simple questions need answering. If we are on the lip of “prosperity” and can boast of paying for projects out of saved rather than borrowed money, how can this be when economic growth is sputtering , when government paper for which taxpayers pay high interest rates to do nothing with, is again becoming preferable in place of hard investment; when the Central Bank has to be propping up the local currency almost daily, the capital budget is reduced and tax and remittance revenues are flat?

The propaganda and the official statistics just do not coincide. This is a plea for truth about the macro-economy just as we, at street-corner and bush-mouth cannot disguise the bitter truth about our own micro-economies.

STRAIGHT TALK

We are tired of the dissembling. What is the money arrangement with the main road contractor? Publish all the contracts so we know what to expect and who, if anyone, is gouging. Declare who bought and for what price, all divested public lands and assets.

The admirable Minister must tell us how much of the impressive gross revenue from tourism stays here and how sustainable is this mainstay of the economy when hotel workers, craft vendors, transport operators and sundry purveyors are complaining of being treated like the indentured servants of 1834.

Why has the increase given the taxi men been cancelled without explanation while they get draped up on the streets for hustling to make up for what they bargained?

And our top soil continues to be raped for ‘penny quattie’ and the promising Minister Green still does not appear to appreciate the contradiction between the agriculture and mining elements of his awkward portfolio.

AS IT WAS IN THE BEGINNING..

As a colony, the Jamaica economy and society were extractive by nature, leeching value to develop brakra. The strategies and some of the melanin have changed but most Jamaicans still feel that they “lose offa” their sweat.

This year is a jubilee year. Forgiveness of debt and reconciling personal and societal wrongs are the Biblical objectives of this observance – a new beginning awaits our corrected perspectives and earnest effort.

“No more will I give your grain as food to your enemies; Nor shall foreigners drink your wine for which you toiled. But you who harvest the grain shall eat it and you shall praise the Lord. You who gather the grapes will drink the wine in the courts of my sanctuary”. (Isaiah Ch 62 v8-9)

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. He is former member of parliament for Kingston Central and was the minister of education. He is the principal of St Michael’s College at The UWI. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com