Karl Samuda: from centre to periphery

Robert Buddan, Contributor

Karl Samuda sat at the centre of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and its government for three years. But after those short years, he was shunted off to the margins of power and is probably now staring over the precipitous edge. His political life in the JLP now appears very short.

As general secretary of the JLP, Mr Samuda sat at its centre in this most tumultuous period of the Manatt-Coke scandal. During the time, the party engaged in a secret and unwise endeavour to employ the firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips in the Coke extradition matter. It paid money from sources within the JLP too dangerous or embarrassing for him or the party to disclose to the commission of enquiry.

Mr Samuda claims to have "toiled tirelessly" to lift the JLP from the seemingly invincible position that the People's National Party's (PNP) Portia Simpson Miller commanded in 2006 when she led Golding more than two-to-one in popularity. But as party general secretary, he has to accept that he had allowed the devious powers surrounding the party to undo its fragile popularity, reversing the earlier work he takes credit for. How is it that the man who took the JLP from an almost impossible position coudbe so dispensable in an election year so soon after? Is there more to it?

Interest groups

As minister of industry, investment and commerce, Mr Samuda sat at the centre of government. This placed him on the front line, facing off powerful and nagging interest groups, like the well-connected players in manufacturing and commerce. There, Samuda had been at the centre of disquiet over Government's policies on cement, tyres, scrap metal, divestment and GCT waivers.

Some in the party, in fact, believe that Samuda's fall from grace had something to do with the conjectured sale of Sandals-Whitehouse to Gorstew, a matter which had attracted the criticism of the contractor general for its lack of transparency. Gorstew's business power is well-known. Samuda apparently had issues with the sale price.

The freeze on GCT waivers had not won him friends either. It had particularly angered the Jamaica Manufacturers' Association (and the Jamaica Exporters' Association. They ganged up to 'trace off' Samuda in March over a matter that was really part of Audley Shaw's tax reform. In his April/May Budget, Shaw confirmed that tax waivers would end since Government needed all the revenue it could get.

Misfortunes converge

Samuda's misfortunes as general secretary and minister converged. Some started to blame him from the summer of 2010 for the party's embarrassment in the Manatt-Coke scandal (such as failure to resolve the Brady-Vaz public quarrel). The Young Turks in the party saw the chance to move against him as general secretary last December. But his supposed role in the Sandals Whitehouse sale brought Daryl Vaz out against him for that job as well.

Did private business interests pressure the prime minister to remove Karl Samuda as minister of industry, investment and commerce? Did the prime minister do so because he, too, is under pressure within and outside the party over his leadership? Does Samuda's decline expose a weak prime minister ceding ever more influence to certain powerful business interests? Is this jeopardising the IMF agreement and contributing to our economic woes?

Take this instance. Just before Golding's Cabinet reshuffle, the JEA and JMA issued harsh words against Samuda. They blamed him, not Shaw, for ending the GCT waivers on machinery and equipment. They complained, rather dramatically, that it would undermine the industry-modernisation programme, forcing closures and potentially costing many thousands of jobs. They blamed Samuda, saying there had been no consultations with them. They could have blamed Shaw and IMF officials who had done that deal behind their backs.

A compromise solution was to sideline Samuda by dumping him in the mining ministry. But he objected, and so out of the Cabinet he went completely.

Many opportunistic forces surround the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce. We will wait to see how the new minister acts to see what powers are pleased. We will see how the tax waiver issue evolves. The PNP says the Government has failed the test of transparency on waivers and has violated its agreement with the IMF to cease granting discretionary waivers of taxes. We will see if the new minister, Christopher Tufton, serves special interests or the IMF.

Missed opportunity

Interest-group theory or pressure-group politics is one of the leading explanations of how liberal democracy works. It tries to answer leading questions of politics, like who rules and who determines who gets what. The power of special interests often lurks in the shadows  of democracy. Transparency and accountability would shed light on the question of who rules and who gets what.

To his credit, Mr Samuda was consistently part of a campaign for reform of some sort within the JLP from the time of the Gang of Five fights in 1990 with Edward Seaga until Seaga's departure in 2005. But his rise with Bruce Golding might well have been his very downfall in the making. Mr Samuda missed an opportunity to reform the JLP by insisting on full finance-campaign disclosure laws. He should also have taken his fight with Seaga to a fight against criminalised constituencies. He would have been on the opposite side of Golding, who, in practice, stood for neither. But by going along, he fell into the maelstrom of his undoing.

As general secretary and representative of the party on the Electoral Commission of Jamaica looking into campaign-finance reform, he should have done more to flush out the potentially dark forces that consistently hovered over his party, pulling its strings with money. Samuda allowed himself to be part of that party of 'tainted money'. He credits himself with the merciless media campaign that helped the JLP win in 2007. But he didn't say where that enormous amount of money came from, and on what terms.

Lack of transparency

He found himself caught up in a party intrigue over who provided money to hire Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, refusing to divulge any names. That is the kind of mess that lack of transparency gets one into. Those who are shielded by secrecy are the same shady ones who use that cover against politicians. What Mr Samuda must ask is if, beyond winning an election for the JLP, he made it a better party; or was the cost of winning that election not to instal forces working in the darkness to usurp Samuda's own hope for reform.

Mr Samuda says he intends to contest the next election. Whether he does so for the JLP, or as an independent, he should now fight from the periphery for campaign-finance disclosure laws as Abe Dabdoub did and for a more transparent ministry. He should fight for greater transparency in granting any discretionary waiver. He should demand that Government publish all information on who have received waivers and by what amounts since the freeze was to have taken effect.

He could still make the JLP a better party and Government.

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