Mark Wignall | Some will have to stay back

You have my sympathy Wesley Boynes, president of the Jamaica Independent Schools Association. A few days ago he asked something of the Government when he knew that what he sought was never going to be entertained.

He wanted the Government to lend financial support to children attending private schools. When my boys were going to school, we sent them to Vaz Prep. The last fee I can remember was $400 per term. I can also remember a certainty in that arrangement. If I had a lean financial period, there was no way or facility available for me to secure funds from the Government.

A few prep schools have hiked their fees substantially. It seems to me that the package settled on in the negotiations between the teachers’ association and the government was one of the main culprits in these fee hikes.

It is a most heartless human being who doesn’t subscribe to the idea that teachers always deserve more than they are getting. In the recent fiasco when the Government awarded itself and its colleagues massive salary hikes, emotions ran quite high, with many Labourites finding themselves backed up against a wall in defending the sleight-of- hand move.

At the same time, as could be expected, many of our people were loudly batting for civil servants like teachers and nurses to be paid in a wage hike close to the percentages easily secured by the politicians.

Outside of the knee-jerk conclusions we weren’t quite thinking. If the Jamaican society was a high-producing one per capita, maybe the Government could risk increases like, say, 75 per cent on teachers. If we had more computer scientists, engineers, architects, aeronautic specialists, etc, and the country was fully hooked up to and substantially participating in the international financial system, maybe we could risk it. Increases in salaries for public-school teachers would be paid for by tapping into a wide spectrum of the society.

In a developing country like Jamaica, the prep schools, as obvious, will ask the parents to help in footing the increased teaching bill that the school has to immediately find. Unlike the scenario in a highly developed society, significant percentages of parents in Jamaica will just have to brace themselves, grin, and bear it. Were we producing semi- conductors and hosting 20 million tourists per year, the increases would not even form a blip on the radar screen.

Dr Boynes understands the motions of money, and he knows what is likely to be the logical results.

DPP DESERVES MORE

Ms Paula Llewellyn is easily my favourite public official. She is strong, capable, fearless, all qualities needed as head of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Whenever crisis is stirred up close to her or controversies arise, she is always open to the media, and she talks quite frankly.

I have two friends who are both of substantial means. They both have huge cases stewing in the justice system. They have nothing good to say about the director of public prosecutions (DPP). I will leave that as it is.

Recently, the DPP stated that her office is staffed by 55 Crown counsels. After naming a number of cases, Messado, Ruel Reid, NESOL, INSPORTS, SSL, and Manchester Parish Council that are in need of disposal, especially in the view of the public, I was advised by a lawyer with 35 years’ experience that 55 lawyers at the DPP is far from enough.

“Fraud cases are quite tedious matters. Just those cases named by the DPP would probably require about 20 of those lawyers poring over, building the case, and gathering evidence. And then the DPP’s office has to deal with cases involving the use and possession of guns, lottery scamming, burglary, domestic violence, rape, and other crimes.

“How dare the Government mention in its mouth, crime plan - real or imagined - when that obviously weak link has long been identified, but it has been callously left unattended to. The criminals have had ample time to play hopscotch with the SOEs and the DPP and employ expensive lawyers who are quite experienced in gaming the system.”

The politicians filled their pockets recently. The same magic they used to make that happen can happen if they would only invoke those same spirits to find about 30 additional layers and place them in the DPP’s office post-haste.

I was 19 years old in 1970 and working at an infamous place named United Fruit Company. It occupied the same building now housing the Jamaican Stock Exchange on Harbour Street in downtown Kingston.

In those days, the wharves were the ‘finger pier’ types where wooden structures were solidly rooted in the depths of the sea and ships docked alongside perpendicular to the pier. A Jamaica Labour Party firebrand politician named Eddie Seaga, who was minister of development and welfare, had made the decision to dump up some land to the city’s west, to name that place, Newport West, and to move the entire docking of ships from downtown to that Newport West.

Many people were mad at him for the inconvenience, including me. Although we were only passing through, my pay was attractive, and some of us were comfortable where we were even though in my case, all the white bosses had air-conditioned offices upstairs while the rest of us worked in the heat with sturdy 1940s metal fans downstairs.

Many people in sections of St Thomas have been complaining about various nuisances encountered while China Harbour has been building out the highway in that part of the island. It is almost like a repeat of the past.

A few months ago, I spoke with three householders in the Bull Bay area who had sold their land spaces to the developers. I can tell you that they were as pleased as puss. They knew that the funds they received were inflated values caused by the bypass. In no other way would they be able to fetch anything remotely equal to what they eventually secured.

Change has to come and anger has to be expressed. That of course will never change.

 

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