As Elections Near, Violent Crime And Corruption Will Be Center Stage For Jamaican Voters…

Another nation­al elec­tion is around the cor­ner in Jamaica and as have been the case over the last decade and a half, polit­i­cal killings have more or less become a thing of the past to the cred­it of the peo­ple.
Was it left up to the lead­ers of the two polit­i­cal par­ties it is safe to say that polit­i­cal killings would be a major wor­ry still? The Jamaican peo­ple should take a bow for matur­ing.
Amidst the impend­ing chal­lenges posed by COVID-19 and the bal­anc­ing act that must be done with tourism and allow­ing return­ing res­i­dents back into the coun­try in order to retain some sem­blance of eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty, the present lead­er­ship has done an admirable job.

With that said, the two most press­ing issues that plagued Jamaica before Andrew Holness took office, remain stub­born­ly omnipresent today, and that both­ers me because he had ample time to change the tra­jec­to­ry on both.
The two issues are vio­lent Crimes & Corruption.
As I write this I am ful­ly con­ver­sant that these opin­ions will be improp­er­ly con­strued as sup­port for one par­ty over the oth­er, or feal­ty for one and hatred for the oth­er.
There is nei­ther feal­ty nor hatred, I strive only to speak the truth. When I write about pol­i­tics, I gen­er­al­ly do so cleansed of the cor­ro­sive tox­i­c­i­ty of affil­i­a­tion because of my present geog­ra­phy.
As such my bird’s eye view allows me the lux­u­ry of objectivity.

CORRUPTION

Andrew Holness has the envi­able dis­tinc­tion to have been sworn in twice as Prime Minister of Jamaica, and still be at the ten­der age of forty-eight (48). But to whom much is giv­en much is expect­ed.
He had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to see from inside what most of us can only glimpse at from the out­side.
After Bruce Golding was forced uncer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly to step aside, Andrew Holness became Prime Minister.
As a young man, he was unde­ni­ably ful­ly aware of the 18 ¹⁄₂ years of the PNP’s many cor­rup­tion scan­dals.
As some­one who is actu­al­ly old­er than Holness, I am nau­se­at­ed at the prospect that elect­ed offi­cials who are entrust­ed with the peo­ple’s busi­ness would betray that trust and engage in cor­rupt prac­tices.
My hope was that Andrew Holness would have been as nau­se­at­ed as I am about cor­rup­tion. I dared to dream that his nascent admin­is­tra­tion would be one that his­to­ri­ans would point to, the one that decid­ed cor­rup­tion was a thing of the past.
In fact, I had good rea­son to hope because can­di­date Holness promised to end cor­rup­tion.….….… He promised to ensure that Jamaicans could sleep with their win­dows open. ( we will get back to that).
On being sworn in, the new Prime Minister Andrew Holness promised much. 

Second Inaugural address.…..March 3^rd 2016.

(The fol­low­ing is the full text of the inau­gur­al address by Prime Minister Andrew Holness at his swear­ing-in cer­e­mo­ny on (March 3, 2016).
Your Excellencies, the Governor-General, the Most Honourable Sir Patrick Allen, and Lady Allen
Leader of the Opposition the Most Honorable Portia Simpson Miller
Former Prime Ministers:
The Most Honorable Edward Seaga and Mrs. Seaga
The Most Honorable PJ Patterson
The Honorable Bruce Golding and Mrs. Golding
My fel­low Jamaicans
Good after­noon.
I rec­og­nize that I stand here today only by the Grace of God. It has not been an easy jour­ney to this podi­um, but earnest labor and fer­vent prayers con­quer all. To God be the glo­ry.
It is with a deep sense of grat­i­tude, hon­or, and humil­i­ty that I took the Oath of Office moments ago, ful­ly con­scious of the mag­ni­tude of expec­ta­tions and respon­si­bil­i­ty I have assumed, but equal­ly ener­gized and opti­mistic about a pros­per­ous future for Jamaica. I pledge to serve the peo­ple of Jamaica faith­ful­ly, with all of my ener­gies, all of my heart, mind, and soul.
I stand here today hap­py to be rep­re­sent­ing the voice, vision, vote, and vic­to­ry of Jamaica.
We may have dif­fer­ent voic­es and dif­fer­ent votes on a sim­i­lar vision, regard­less of our dif­fer­ences, Jamaica was vic­to­ri­ous at the General Elections. It is not per­fect, but we can all be proud of the peo­ple, sys­tems, and insti­tu­tions that make up our democ­ra­cy.
Meaning of the Mandate
On the day of Election, I wit­nessed a young man car­ry­ing, cra­dled in his arm, an obvi­ous­ly bed-rid­den elder­ly man from a polling sta­tion. I was touched by the sight. In the bus­tle of the busy school­yard, as they passed, the elder­ly man point­ed his ink-stained fin­ger at me and said, “Andrew, do the right thing!“
I stand here hum­bled by the awe­some pow­er of you, the peo­ple, and I com­mit to doing right by you. The peo­ple are sov­er­eign and their views and votes must nev­er be tak­en for grant­ed.
The peo­ple of Jamaica did not vote in vain. They expect a gov­ern­ment that works for them and by the same expec­ta­tion, an Opposition that is con­struc­tive. This his­toric elec­tion deliv­ered the small­est major­i­ty but also the clear­est man­date: Fix Government!
With this man­date:
There is no major­i­ty for arro­gance.
There is no space for self­ish­ness.
There is no place for pet­ti­ness.
There is no room for com­pla­cen­cy and,
There is no mar­gin for error.
I am under no illu­sion as to the mean­ing of this man­date. We have not won a prize. Instead, peo­ple are giv­ing us a test.
There is no absolute agency of pow­er. This means that the win­ner can­not take all, or believe we can do it alone.
Leading Partnerships for Prosperity
To achieve the vision of shared pros­per­i­ty through inclu­sive eco­nom­ic growth and mean­ing­ful job cre­ation, now more than ever, the Government must lead, acti­vate, empow­er, and build real part­ner­ships. I intend to lead a Government of part­ner­ship. The solu­tions to our prob­lems do not rest with the Government alone.
The sum total of our poten­tial exceeds our prob­lems; our col­lec­tive capa­bil­i­ties are greater than our chal­lenges, but it is only through part­ner­ship that these capa­bil­i­ties and this poten­tial can be seized, har­nessed, and real­ized for the good of Jamaica.
Partnerships require trust, clear assign­ment of respon­si­bil­i­ty, and an ele­vat­ed sense of duty.
There is only so much trust that pledges and state­ments of com­mit­ment can buy. I under­stand that the Jamaican peo­ple now want to see action in build­ing trust. This is part of fix­ing the gov­ern­ment.
Everyone who will form the next gov­ern­ment must be seized of this expec­ta­tion.
From the politi­cian mak­ing pol­i­cy to the civ­il ser­vant pro­cess­ing an appli­ca­tion, we must act duti­ful­ly to ful­fill our respon­si­bil­i­ties.
Trust requires the actu­al­iza­tion of our com­mit­ments. We will ful­fill our com­mit­ments.
Our actions can achieve so much more if they are coör­di­nat­ed. We will bring greater coör­di­na­tion, ratio­nal­i­ty, and focus on the role of gov­ern­ment so that the objec­tives of part­ner­ship can be clear.
There is no doubt that sig­nif­i­cant num­bers of Jamaicans have lost hope in our sys­tem, but I am encour­aged that a far larg­er num­ber main­tains faith, keeps hope and con­tin­ues to pray that Jamaica will grow and pros­per.
I am ener­gized by the expres­sions of will­ing­ness to work with our new Government in the inter­est of Jamaica. The sense of duty is alive and well. There is more hope than despair and this cre­ates a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to form part­ner­ships for pros­per­i­ty.
Partnership with Families
You know, I am now joined in Parliament by my life part­ner Juliet. Family is the ulti­mate part­ner­ship. And that is why my Government will focus resources on sup­port­ing fam­i­lies.
By increas­ing the income tax thresh­old we will restore the eco­nom­ic pow­er of house­holds to par­tic­i­pate in not only grow­ing our GDP but more impor­tant­ly grow­ing the gen­er­al well­be­ing of the soci­ety.
Here’s how the part­ner­ship with fam­i­lies, and the work­ing heads of house­holds will work.
Our gov­ern­ment will ease your tax bur­den, but you must spend and invest wise­ly, use the addi­tion­al mon­ey to acquire a house for your fam­i­ly or improve the house you already have, or buy Jamaican-made goods.
This how we will increase local effec­tive demand in hous­ing, man­u­fac­tur­ing, and agri­cul­ture. This is how you can play a part in cre­at­ing jobs while sat­is­fy­ing your well-being.
We will con­tin­ue our pol­i­cy of tuition-free edu­ca­tion and no user fee access to health care. However, will enable you to save in an edu­ca­tion bond for your chil­dren’s edu­ca­tion and in a nation­al health insur­ance scheme your health­care.
We will enhance our social safe­ty net for vul­ner­a­ble fam­i­lies, and will pro­vide sup­port for par­ents in cri­sis, but you must be respon­si­ble and send your chil­dren to school. Our men must take care of their chil­dren, and cou­ples must be respon­si­ble for hav­ing the chil­dren they can afford.
Our gov­ern­ment com­mits to cre­at­ing the envi­ron­ment in which fam­i­lies can flour­ish and form com­mu­ni­ties of social mobil­i­ty from which every ghet­to youth can be a star. However, every fam­i­ly mem­ber must do his or her part by being per­son­al­ly, social­ly, and eco­nom­i­cal­ly respon­si­ble.
I am sure Juliet will under­stand if I seek to build anoth­er part­ner­ship in Parliament. Leader of the Opposition, Portia Simpson Miller has giv­en long and ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice to the coun­try and I believe the man­date is say­ing, we may not be on the same side of the road, but as much as pos­si­ble we should hold hands in coöper­a­tion to over­come obsta­cles for the good of the coun­try.
We have evolved with­out for­mal struc­ture a very good part­ner­ship in edu­ca­tion and we intend to con­tin­ue our infor­mal col­lab­o­ra­tions in this area and pur­sue oth­er such areas of coöper­a­tion between Government and Opposition mem­bers.
I still believe it is a use­ful sym­bol of nation­al uni­ty for the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to appear togeth­er in zones of polit­i­cal exclu­sions. I again extend the invi­ta­tion.
Partnership for Growth with Private Sector
The pri­or­i­ty of this Government is to grow the econ­o­my and cre­ate mean­ing­ful jobs. In so doing, we will more rapid­ly and sus­tain­ably reduce debt. I am sure we all agree that much of Jamaica’s devel­op­ment has been achieved with­out growth, which has left us with much debt. This is unsus­tain­able.
Going for­ward, Jamaica’s devel­op­ment must rest on its abil­i­ty to cre­ate propo­si­tions of val­ue and attract invest­ments to con­vert the val­ue into wealth. In this mod­el, the Government is not the main investor, it is the Private Sector whether they be large enter­pris­es or small busi­ness­es. In the eco­nom­ic part­ner­ship with the Private Sector, Government’s role, among oth­ers, is:
To ensure the rule of law.
Create a safe, secure, and fair envi­ron­ment for busi­ness
Make mar­kets where none exist
Ensure trans­paren­cy and access to infor­ma­tion ‑and cre­ate an effi­cient and sup­port­ive pub­lic sec­tor bureau­cra­cy
In exchange, we want the Private Sector to unleash invest­ments in the local econ­o­my. We want to see the return of the pio­neer­ing dri­ve to cre­ate new indus­tries, the entre­pre­neur­ial will­ing­ness to take a risk, and the inno­v­a­tive insight to do things bet­ter. I am heart­ened by the sig­nals com­ing from the Private Sector. I believe they have got the mes­sage about the part­ner­ship for growth and job cre­ation. Now is the time for growth.
Partnership with inter­na­tion­al part­ners.
We are not naïve about the chal­lenges we face regard­ing our debt and the need to main­tain fis­cal dis­ci­pline. This is why we will con­tin­ue with the prin­ci­ple of joint over­sight of our Economic Programme and per­for­mance.
We rec­og­nize the impor­tance of, and val­ue our rela­tion­ship with our bilat­er­al and mul­ti­lat­er­al friends. These rela­tion­ships have been crit­i­cal in secur­ing sta­bil­i­ty. We believe in pre­serv­ing sta­bil­i­ty, but we must now build upon this in pro­duc­tive part­ner­ships with them to achieve inclu­sive growth and job cre­ation.
There are many more areas of part­ner­ships that we must for­mal­ly pur­sue nation­al devel­op­ment and as our gov­ern­ment is installed over the com­ing days these will become evi­dent.
The Role of the Prime Minister
In all these part­ner­ships for pros­per­i­ty, there must be coör­di­nat­ed effort. That is my role. I will ensure that:
The gov­ern­ment is coör­di­nat­ed and strate­gi­cal­ly direct­ed.
Decisions are tak­en quick­ly.
Targets are set.
The nation is informed and that.
Everyone under my appoint­ment is held to account for their action or lack there­of.
Institutional Reform
There is a sense of expec­ta­tion of change. It is not lost on me that I am the first of the Post-Independence gen­er­a­tion to lead Jamaica. More than any­thing else we want to see Jamaica take its true place as a devel­oped coun­try in the next 50 years. The strug­gle is not so much polit­i­cal inde­pen­dence as it is eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence. It is through our eco­nom­ic inde­pen­dence that we secure real polit­i­cal inde­pen­dence.
However, after 53 years of inde­pen­dence, there is a need for insti­tu­tion­al review of the Jamaican State both in terms of mod­ern­iza­tion of the insti­tu­tions of the State, and the struc­ture of the State. The gov­ern­ment has to improve its busi­ness process­es and become more effi­cient as a reg­u­la­tor and a ser­vice provider.
There is a need for us to have a say in the fun­da­men­tal insti­tu­tions that define Jamaica, the rights we secure for our cit­i­zens, and how we want Jamaica to be. We will give form to that voice in a ref­er­en­dum to decide on con­sti­tu­tion­al mat­ters and social mat­ters.
Independent Jamaica must remove the cul­ture of depen­den­cy from our midst. We must teach our chil­dren that there is no wealth with­out work, and no suc­cess with­out sac­ri­fice. We must remove the belief from the psy­che of our chil­dren that the only way they can step up in life is not by how hard they work, but by who they know.
As Prime Minister, I have a duty to align our incen­tives and reward sys­tems for those who work and fol­low rules. We must cre­ate a Jamaica where the man who plays by the rules is reward­ed!
It is impor­tant that the cit­i­zens of Independent Jamaica have a sense of enti­tle­ment to good ser­vice from their coun­try. However, increas­ing­ly this is not being bal­anced with a duty of ‘giv­ing back’. Jamaica has ben­e­fit­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly from the civic pride and sense of nation­hood that drove so many to give gen­er­ous­ly of their tal­ent and trea­sures to build our great nation.
The spir­it still exists, to a great extent, local­ly and in our Diaspora. However, we have to be more active in pro­mot­ing civic respon­si­bil­i­ty, vol­un­teerism, and ‘giv­ing back’, par­tic­u­lar­ly among our youth. And we have to inte­grate the incred­i­ble tal­ents and assets of the Jamaican Diaspora in local devel­op­ment. Too often I hear com­plaints from the Diaspora that they expe­ri­ence dif­fi­cul­ty in giv­ing to Jamaica. Giving should be easy, as part of our Partnership for Prosperity which includes the Diaspora, we will make it eas­i­er for you to con­tribute to the devel­op­ment of your home­land.
Jamaica is too rich in peo­ple and tal­ent to be a poor coun­try. With good gov­er­nance and a prospec­tive out­look, Jamaica, with­in a decade or less, could emerge as a boom­ing econ­o­my and a pros­per­ous soci­ety.
Jamaica is geo­graph­i­cal­ly cen­tral in the Caribbean. My vision is to turn Jamaica into the cen­ter of the Caribbean. A cen­ter of finance, trade and com­merce, tech­nol­o­gy and inno­va­tion, and the cen­ter of arts, cul­ture, and lifestyle region­al­ly. This is all pos­si­ble with­in our life­time. Despite any neg­a­tives, Jamaica still has a pow­er­ful and allur­ing brand ampli­fy­ing our voice and influ­ence in the world.
We can­not be sat­is­fied with things as they are. My dream is to ful­fill your dream. We must cre­ate a Jamaica where there are hope and oppor­tu­ni­ty. Where we can encour­age our chil­dren to dream big and be opti­mistic about their life chances. We must cre­ate a Jamaica where our young peo­ple can find mean­ing­ful work. Jamaica where you feel safe to live, work, and raise your chil­dren. Jamaica that is boom­ing and investors and entre­pre­neurs can have a con­fi­dent out­look on the econ­o­my. A place where we can retire and tru­ly enjoy as par­adise.
All of this is pos­si­ble. We must start now. Time for a part­ner­ship. Time for action!)

Andrew Holness has done noth­ing to address the acts of cor­rup­tion in his gov­ern­ment. It is not okay to say the PNP did it too.
Public ser­vants are all invest­ed with the peo­ple’s trust. Regardless of what lev­el pub­lic employ­ees oper­ate, he/​she has a duty to be respon­si­ble and hon­est stew­ards of that trust.
Crimes of cor­rup­tion should not be tol­er­at­ed at any lev­el. On this issue, Andrew Holness scores an (F).
[Whataboutism] is not accept­able.
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VIOLENT CRIMES

Despite the myr­i­ad mea­sures employed by the admin­is­tra­tion since tak­ing office, crime has increased each year with no end in sight. Today Jamaica hov­ers some­where around the third and fourth most vio­lent place on plan­et earth.
As a prag­ma­tist, I do not hope and pray to accom­plish tan­gi­ble results, nei­ther do I believe that the only solu­tion to the nation’s crime epi­dem­ic is divine inter­ven­tion.
Sure I pray a lot, I too believe in divine inter­ven­tion, where I part com­pa­ny with the Jamaican crowd, includ­ing the past PNP Minister of National Security Peter Bunting, is that I do not sit around and expect God to come in to fix things.
I am more of a Phillipians 4 – 13 kind of guy. I can do all things through Christ who strength­ens me. I am not the Moses dude who stopped to pray with Pharoh’s army to his back and the red sea, fac­ing him.
Those of us who have been in the trench­es know that crime and vio­lence thrive in envi­ron­ments of acqui­es­cence and tol­er­ance.
There is hard­ly a soci­ety more acqui­es­cent and tol­er­ant of crim­i­nal­i­ty than Jamaica.

Rather than lead on this issue, the People’s National Party and the Jamaica Labor Party have both fol­lowed the crime trends. The media-cheer­leads and the nation con­tin­ues on the slip­pery slope of becom­ing a failed state.
Support of gang­sters and gun­men is now cement­ed and a part of Jamaican cul­ture. It is expo­nen­tial­ly more dif­fi­cult to erad­i­cate the ram­pant crim­i­nal­i­ty that per­vades soci­ety as a con­se­quence.
Pandering for votes and kow­tow­ing to self-styled human rights lob­bies have become far more impor­tant than address­ing the run­away crime epi­dem­ic fac­ing the nation.
Holness has not dis­tin­guished him­self from that cul­tur­al rot. In fact, he made it his duty to be dis­re­spect­ful of the JCF through­out his tenure, first by putting his friend and for­mer head of the JDF Antony Anderson in charge of the JCF.
His words and deeds have been par­tic­u­lar­ly dis­re­spect­ful to the mem­bers of the JCF, and has only begun to be soft­er now that nation­al elec­tions are near. 

Instead of lead­ing on crime the Prime Minister bad­mouthed the JCF, while push­ing the JDF as a sort of qua­si-police depart­ment.
The truth is that the Prime Minister should be suf­fi­cient­ly apprised on the ram­pant crim­i­nal­i­ty in the coun­try and under­stand that, yes, far too many police offi­cers are cor­rupt, but as soon as the peo­ple are suf­fi­cient­ly exposed to the mil­i­tary, so too will the decry the sol­dier’s cor­rup­tion as well.
That did not take long to occur.
In this medi­um this writer implored the Prime Minister to throw his admin­is­tra­tion’s 100% sup­port behind the police, even as efforts are stepped up to ensure that good offi­cer are appro­pri­ate­ly appre­ci­at­ed, ele­vat­ed and bad ones removed and replaced.
I urged him to remove Terrence Williams from INDECOM and replace him with some­one focused on the task at hand. That is the inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion of all reports of abuse by the secu­ri­ty forces, in an objec­tive and pro­fes­sion­al man­ner.
While throw­ing the full sup­port of the Government behind the secu­ri­ty forces, he did nei­ther.
Supporting the efforts of law enforce­ment and hold­ing them account­able (as an arm of gov­ern­ment) are not mutu­al­ly exclu­sive endeavors.

The most fun­da­men­tal mis­take made by Holness has been his inabil­i­ty to ful­ly under­stand the role law enforce­ment plays in ful­ly demo­c­ra­t­ic soci­eties.
The two are inex­tri­ca­bly linked, one does not exist with­out the oth­er. Andrew Holness’ demon­stra­ble dis­dain for the police has bled out into how he leads through­out his term.
Criticizing the work of the police against sea­soned killers, with a broad brush, when you do not have the courage to do a ride-along with them is gross­ly unfair and cow­ard­ly.
Now that elec­tions are around the cor­ner he has soft­ened his tone and mea­sured his demeanor, but the dam­age is already done.
Separate and apart from the polit­i­cal the­ater, there is the lit­tle issue of the mes­sage sent when the nation’s lead­er­ship has a hands-off rela­tion­ship with the police.
In the end, pet­ty feel­ings and grudges can­not be a part of gov­er­nance. SOE’s and ZOSO’s has done noth­ing to stem the blood­shed.
The head of the Police, a for­mer mil­i­tary leader, has not pro­duced any mea­sur­able pos­i­tive result that could not have been achieved by a career police offi­cer.
The jury is still out on what poten­tial harm may have been done to the psy­che of the offi­cers on the ground when their elect­ed lead­ers indi­cate to them that they are not good enough to lead the orga­ni­za­tion to which they have ded­i­cat­ed their entire careers.
You can talk all you want about all of the mate­r­i­al sup­port you give to the depart­ment, if you have not giv­en the moral sup­port that the men and women who risk all to pro­tect oth­ers need, you have failed at the most impor­tant task of governance.

This is the first in a series of arti­cles that I will write lead­ing up to the elec­tions. We will look objec­tive­ly and fac­tu­al­ly at the two polit­i­cal par­ties and their lead­ers, from our research we will out­line the facts and let the Jamaican peo­ple decide for themselves.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, free­lance writer,
he is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al web­sites.
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