Corrupt money and Jamaican politics

Robert Buddan, Contributor

David Smith, who earned infamy for his self-styled Jamaican private investment club, Olint, has gone down in Florida. After being charged in The Turks and Caicos Island last September and sentenced to six years, he was extradited to the United States where he admitted to 23 charges in a Florida court last Tuesday, concerning a US$223-million Ponzi scheme that defrauded thousands of persons.

The Post Chronicle said many prominent Jamaican politicians and doctors were among his clients. He also reportedly sponsored a jazz and blues festival in Jamaica in 2008.

Media reports say Smith lived a lavish lifestyle, even making a down payment on a Lear jet and was apparently using other people's money for gambling. But what caught the eye was the statement in the Orlando Sentinel that Smith also made "political contributions". This caught the eye because it has been widely rumoured that Smith gave money to the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). I have reason to believe it was more than rumour. If he gave money to the JLP, we would like to know. We would like to know because he has admitted to four counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and 18 counts of money laundering.

It cannot be good for someone like this to be influencing our politics.

Yet, Smith was not arrested and tried in Jamaica. Was this part of the benefit of his political connections and contributions? He has not been prosecuted in Jamaica despite calls for him to be. The local Fraud Squad has not laid any charges against him. It is the United States' Attorney General's Office (USAG) that might give Jamaicans some justice. The USAG has asked Smith's victims to submit their claims to that office.

Soap Opera

Smith's court confession comes at the same time that Jamaica's prime minister refuses to tell the Manatt-Dudus enquiry where the JLP got the money to pay Manatt for its services, which Manatt said were services for the Government of Jamaica. The whole point of the enquiry was to get to the bottom of the GOJ-Manatt engagement. Yet, on this very vital point, Golding refuses to disclose who paid Manatt. How then can we get to the truth and how then can we take the enquiry to be anything other than what people have come to call it - a soap opera? No one believes the real truth will come out and no one believes those who are to be punished will be. Jamaicans are, therefore, asking why are taxpayers paying a projected $78 million for the enquiry, about twice what had been intended.

Most of the charges against Smith involve money laundering. Is the JLP a conduit for laundered money? Did the JLP pay Manatt with laundered money? The US Attorney General's Office might want to know the answer.

Law professor David Rowe implied that the US attorney general might have an interest because of the connection with 'Dudus' and the Shower Posse. Rowe says, "The Shower Posse has a reputation for murder, violence and ill-gotten influence. It has heavy influence in all the major offices of the Government of Jamaica."

Professor Rowe said this while praising the American charge d'affaires in Jamaica, Isiah Parnell, for not bowing to fear of the Shower Posse in the extradition of Christopher Coke. Professor Rowe was also saying that the US government was not going to be pushed around by "a few bad boys from Kingston in collaboration with their uptown sponsors". Again, the implication may be that the Jamaican Government is being pushed around by these bad boys from Kingston, consorting with or yielding to pressure from their uptown sponsors.

There is danger here and this takes us back to the Manatt-Dudus enquiry. Jamaicans have already come to see the enquiry as a soap opera. If the enquiry does not produce concrete results, such as information about who paid Manatt; and if no one among the major players in Government is fired or independently resigns; the Americans might not be happy. Jamaicans are already asking if the Emil George-chaired commission has the power to say who has lied and whether it can recommend that anyone be removed from office.

If nothing of substance comes out of the commission, the Americans might feel that Jamaica's justice system does not work. It had not prosecuted David Smith. Now, it has set up an enquiry where important witnesses are refusing to tell the truth.

Campaign Finance

The chickens have come home to roost. Since around 2004, a few persons in Jamaican politics began pushing for campaign-finance reform. Anthony Hylton, Trevor Munroe, Abraham Dabdoub and Peter Bunting have advocated transparent campaign-finance laws in the interest of one person, one vote, fighting corruption, protecting parties from tainted money, and preserving our national security. Bruce Golding and his party rejected having full and automatic disclosure from the start. Without this, there can be no transparency and accountability by politicians who take money from dubious or downright criminal sources. Probably that was the aim.

There will be no disclosure of the money taken from the David Smiths of this world; of persons like Coke and the Shower Posse; of unnamed "persons within the JLP", to use Karl Samuda's mysterious phrase; and those persons will be protected by prime ministers even at commissions of enquiry where they refuse to tell who they get money from. This makes it even more important to make a law for disclosure so that we do not have to depend on a commission to ask who gives what money to whom (with expectation of getting what in return). Instead, we would have a law that requires that we be told.

This is even more important if our Charter of Rights is to be meaningful. Parliament passed a long-awaited Charter of Rights more than a week ago. The right to vote is now to become part of our democratic rights. But since the vote can be bought, and since the money of the rich can talk louder than the vote of the poor, it would make good sense for the electoral commission to recommend full disclosure laws for campaign financing as a companion to the Charter of Rights.

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm.