Mark Wignall | What say you, Bobby?

“This demonstrates bias, malice, and prejudice. This demonstrates that the investigative process of the Integrity Commission is unfair or biased and shows a lack of even-handedness as they act differently in certain circumstances, depending on which person is being investigated.”

Thus said Bobby Montague, chairman of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), former minister of transport and national security in a parliamentary presentation on June 6.

Last Thursday, I was in the mood to avoid all contact with JLP politicians because painfully, I was a live witness to seeing the collective whole spiking their own drinks while dancing at a cocktail party, close to the edge of the top-floor balcony of a New Kingston hotel.

But I had to call Bobby Montague, a politician who I have known since the late 1990s. I like the man and have a deep respect for him. I came closest to hating him two days before the US presidential elections in 2016.

“Trump is going to win,” Bobby said. Then he went on to speak about that angry, abandoned, white community abutting the rural areas, the democrats acting as if political certainty was theirs alone.

“I am sorry I called,” I said. The next day was sheer political calamity for me and many others across the globe.

A loyal reader of mine, a Jamaican attorney working and living abroad, wrote: “It was divisive and controversial. He presents himself as a very desperate man.” He was making reference to Montague’s fiery special presentation about, again, the Integrity Commission (IC).

The grey areas

These are political times and with exponential growth of engagement of politics in social media, politicians are judged mainly on the binary extremes. There is no consideration for the nuances in the grey areas. Truth cannot reside there, and unless it pains and excites the salacious and TikTok, many will avoid it.

“In your special presentation you did sound paranoid,” I was probably jumping too easily to making wrong assumptions. “Who are the they you made reference to?” I asked.

“About two weeks ago, one evening, I was returning home when a constituent told me that a reporter with a camera was asking exactly where I lived because the person had heard that the Integrity Commission was organising a raid on my home,” said Montague.

At the very least, Montague is accusing one key person in the IC of political bias, certainly not anything out of the ordinary in politics and in Jamaica. In April of 202,2 Bobby Montague responded to a Gleaner piece by saying: “The responsible minister is not bound by any decision taken by the Firearm Licensing Authority (FLA) Board or the recommendations of the Review Board and is statutorily mandated to arrive at an independent judgment on the case. There can, therefore, be no usurpation of authority if the minister exercises a discretion, on review, to grant an application for a licence which was previously denied by the FLA Board or which departs from the recommendations of the Review Board. The minister’s discretion is subject only to a duty to act fairly.”

The key words are “statutorily mandated”. The Gleaner’s March 10, 2022, article was titled ‘How Montague granted gun permits to six people with criminal traces’.

Bobby and I spoke on the phone, and much of what he said was, between us, off the record. But in one instance, one of the individuals who, supposedly, had a criminal trace was a bank manager. According to the former national security minister: “He went to a music festival and visited a nearby police station to leave the firearm while he was enjoying the music. Strangely, the police told him there was no more space to store guns. So he did the next best. He placed the firearm in the trunk of the car and parked the car on the premises of the police station.

“When he came back, the trunk was broken into and the gun went missing.Strange indeed. The man was fined, and on his reapplication, I recommended his permit be renewed.”

A column like this can never fully capture the meat, gravy, and potatoes of this delicate subject. In these politically tense times, more people are likely to make harsh judgments of the JLP than before. Say, just one year ago.

A key factor brought out by Montague and, troublingly, hardly defended by the IC, is Montague’s assertions that Items of Information, which should have been shared with him in any addendum to the original 400-page report, was not, but was selectively shared with others. Strange.

WHICH IS YOUR FAVOURITE POLITICAL PROMISE?

While on the campaign trail in 2002, Bobby Pickersgill, who was then People’s National Party (PNP) minister of works, stated that “Jamaica would be pothole free by 2003”. I hardly considered it as I was on the way to vote for the PNP anyway in December 2002. After getting my vote in 1993 and 1997, that 2002 vote was my last for the PNP.

While on the campaign trail in 2016, the JLP’s Andrew Holness promised that a win for the JLP would see Jamaicans sleeping with their doors and windows open. It hardly mattered to me as I had already decided to vote JLP. I did so again in 2020.

Political promises are for the politically stupid, and there is no shortage of stupidity in the world. It’s a main part of political currency.

Mark Wignall is a political and public affairs analyst. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and mawigsr@gmail.com.