‘Are We Afraid Of Britain?’ — Golding Questions Unwillingness To Negotiate Better Prison Deal

FORMER PRIME Minister Bruce Golding says he is “uncom­fort­able” with the Government’s accep­tance of pro­posed arrange­ments by British Prime Minister David Cameron for the con­struc­tion of a new prison, on terms which he says are not in Jamaica’s best interest.

Speaking dur­ing the Jamaica Labour Party’s (JLP) South West St Elizabeth Constituency Awards Banquet in Black River on Saturday night, Golding said the terms for the pris­on’s con­struc­tion in Jamaica will ulti­mate­ly place a severe strain on the coun­try’s finances.

He cau­tioned the Government against bur­den­ing the coun­try with respon­si­bil­i­ties which should be borne by Britain.

“I told the British prime min­is­ter (Gordon Brown) — in 2008 I think it was — when the idea was raised, I said, ‘Prime Minister, these are your pris­on­ers, you know, not mine. Look, I can’t take that on’ … . I said, ‘If one of your peo­ple come to Jamaica and com­mit a crime and he is found guilty, we have to lock him up in our prison; we can’t put him on a plane and send him back …,” Golding said.

“You mean, there is nobody in the Government who can say to the prime min­is­ter of Britain, ‘Sorry, we can’t work with that.’ Or if we gonna work it, this is how it has to work? Where is that mon­ey to come from?” he added.

Gov’t Taking On A Burden

Golding said since the £25 mil­lion in assis­tance from the United Kingdom would account for approx­i­mate­ly 40 per cent of the cost to con­struct the prison, Jamaica would have to find the remain­ing 60 per cent, as well as under­take the bur­den of hous­ing and feed­ing the pro­posed 300 pris­on­ers to be repa­tri­at­ed, as pro­posed by British Prime Minister David Cameron.

“So, why can’t some­one say to Prime Minister Cameron: ‘All right, fine. We’re glad for the £25 mil­lion. Now, how much a month you going pay for the board­ing of these pris­on­ers that you send … ? Because they did­n’t com­mit no crime in Jamaica; they weren’t con­vict­ed in Jamaica. So what you are real­ly doing is you’re con­tract­ing us to man­age a prison for you, but to man­age it in Jamaica. And if they enter into that kind of con­tract, they must pay for it. You mean we so ‘fraid a dem?” he questioned.

“This is a poor coun­try; we don’t have no mon­ey; we can­not fix roads. Our pris­ons are over­crowd­ed. We don’t have any emp­ty space in Tower Street or St Catherine (cor­rec­tion­al facil­i­ties). The British gov­ern­ment has more than 2,000 emp­ty cells in their pris­ons. Britain has a whole heap of mon­ey that we don’t .; Britain is a rich coun­try; we are a poor coun­try,” he continued.

He said under Cameron’s cur­rent pro­pos­al, the Government of Jamaica would have to source the funds for con­struct­ing the prison upfront and that by the time the prison is com­plet­ed, the pro­posed allo­ca­tion from the British would have already been exhausted.

“That prison is not like a two-bed­room house, you know,” he said. “That (prison) going take you two and a half years to build at least. And the prime min­is­ter of Britain said he going send back dem guys here by 2020. The point I am mak­ing is that that mon­ey going have to be found fair­ly quick­ly, and I ask the ques­tion: At what expense are you going to find that money?
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