Kern Spencer: I know how Reid must be feeling
Published:Saturday | October 12, 2019 | 12:14 AMPaul Clarke/Gleaner Writer
Former Junior Energy Minister Kern Spencer says he, more than most persons, would understand the emotional turmoil being faced by discarded Education Minister Ruel Reid and his four co-accused facing multiple criminal charges relating to alleged fraud activities at the Caribbean Maritime University.
Spencer is one of only three politicians to have been charged with a crime in modern Jamaican politics. The other was former Labour Minister J.A.G. Smith, who went on to serve jail time for diverting money for personal gain from the farm-work programme in the 1980s.
Since then, despite numerous cases forwarded by the contractor-general to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions for charges to be laid against various Jamaican politicians for corruption, none has been successfully prosecuted.
Spencer said that while he understands the public’s clamouring for politicians to pay the ultimate price for alleged crimes, due process must be considered irrespective of the political leanings of the accused.
WRONGLY CRUCIFIED
“There’s just a general feeling in the public that all politicians are corrupt, and that’s a feeling that is out there for whatever reason,” he told The Gleaner. “People have always been suspicious of politicians and the political process, and even if the truth is staring them in the face, it’s like there’s just this need for the one to pay for all the sins that have been done politically before.”
The businessman reasoned that things have “gone down” before in the past on both sides of the political divide that need explanation but added that what this development has also shown is that no one is above the law.
“So, in my case, I didn’t and still don’t have any ill-will against anybody because I can understand why the public could have been led to feel this way. But I personally felt that I was being crucified for all of the wrongs allegedly done by politicians before me,” Spencer said.
“It’s like they [were] saying, ‘We nuh business, enuh. We ketch one and the good affi suffer for the bad. We have him inna de system and we a go sacrifice him for all a dem. We gonna mek an example out of that politician’,” he said.
In 2008, Spencer, who was the junior energy minister and member of parliament for North East St Elizabeth, found himself at the centre of what became known as the Cuban light bulb scandal in which he was charged with fraud alongside businessman Rodney Chin and Coleen Wright.
The charges were for alleged irregularities under the programme to distribute four million free Cuban light bulbs.
The programme racked up an expenditure of more than $270 million.
Six years later, in March of 2014, he was freed of the charges.
Spencer said that Reid is the only one who knows the real state of his thoughts on the issue of guilt or innocence but offered that even so, it is a nerve-racking experience he wishes on no one.
“Based on what I went through, I think I have an understanding of what he would be going through mentally. I know how he must be feeling, but at the same time, if he believes he is innocent, then he has nothing to worry about.
“If he’s innocent, and he has his documentary evidence, he will have his day in court, and he will have nothing to worry about because a reputation that is damaged can be fixed,” said Spencer.
The former MP said that even though he felt hurt about the things that were swirling about in the public, he knew that that was not who he was.
“That was not the Kern Spencer that my family and friends know and love, so I was anxious to prove, through evidence, my innocence,” he said. “Likewise, for Mr Reid, I think he would be devastated to see things come to this. We can only speculate, and I can only assume based on experience. I suspect that he would be anxiously waiting to present his side of the story.”