The cen­tral argu­ment prof­fered by Jamaicans for Justice in its suit against the pro­mo­tion of for­mer SSP Delroy Hewitt„ is that the (PCS) Police Service Commission, did not do a com­pre­hen­sive enough inves­ti­ga­tion, before green­light­ing Hewitt’s pro­mo­tion.
The argu­ment of the lob­by was not with­out mer­it for pro­mo­tions going for­ward. The coun­try should be seek­ing to find ways to engage in best prac­tices.
Nevertheless, the way the lob­by went about the case was prej­u­di­cial and biased against SSP Hewitt, a senior police offi­cer of impec­ca­ble char­ac­ter.
Instead of engag­ing the Government and the PSC in dia­logue on the issue Jamaicans For Justice chose to go after a sin­gle police offi­cer it did not like, and in that, it’s biased vendet­ta was laid bare.

The recent rul­ing of the British-based Privy Council, but­tressed the claim made by JFJ, that had the PCS con­duct­ed a lengthy Investigation it would poten­tial­ly have arrived at a dif­fer­ent con­clu­sion.
The deci­sion is con­sid­ered aca­d­e­m­ic, because Hewitt is long retired.
Personally, I would not add the word [academic]to any­thing around that rul­ing, as the PSC was not legal­ly bound to con­duct Investigations of can­di­dates before it for pro­mo­tion.
In the inter­est of full dis­clo­sure, this writer is not a lawyer but it seems to me that the deci­sion of the Privy Council is pure­ly sug­ges­tive, as the PSC did not fail as there was no legal­ly bind­ing duty to adhere to con­duct­ing inves­ti­ga­tions before green­light­ing pro­mo­tions.
The tragedy in this whole débâ­cle is that the Government did not mount a chal­lenge against the case on the basis that JFJ had no legal stand­ing to mount the chal­lenge to Hewitt’s pro­mo­tion.
Neither did it chal­lenge JFJ’s case on the friv­o­li­ty of it, since the PSC had no legal bind­ing duty to con­duct pre-pro­mo­tions inves­ti­ga­tions.
The fact is that the Government did not care because the mat­ter was about the police department.

The real vic­tims of the litany of anti-polic­ing lob­bies, (JFJ includ­ed) which have sprung up over the last three decades or so, are law-abid­ing Jamaicans who are not invest­ed in crime.
Make no mis­take about it, the sup­posed good they are doing is cer­tain­ly not reflect­ed in the data as it relates to the low stan­dard of liv­ing Jamaicans are forced to endure as a result of the Islands expo­nen­tial­ly high crime rate.
For one, abuse of women are on the increase, there is no sys­tem­at­ic effort to get Jamaican men to respect women and not see them as prop­er­ty and or objects to be used and abused.
The plight of chil­dren is still an incred­i­bly sore sub­ject which requires imme­di­ate atten­tion, but sup­port­ing chil­dren’s rights is not as sexy for JFJ and oth­ers, as attack­ing the police.
Murders, Rapes and oth­er sex­u­al assaults are wide­spread, includ­ing sex­u­al assaults per­pe­trat­ed on chil­dren and even babies.
Violent crimes of oth­er nature are also wide­spread through­out the Island, mak­ing vic­tims of lit­er­al­ly every law-abid­ing Jamaican.
Yet the focus of the sup­posed human rights lob­bies is sole­ly focused on how many mur­der­ers are killed by the secu­ri­ty forces.

Jamaicans For Justice has cer­tain­ly not been Jamaica’s first anti-police [rodeo].
Long before they came on the scene, Flo O’Connor was there, and there were oth­ers whom I can­not recall at the moment.
The truth is, dur­ing the ’80s when those bleed­ing ‑hearts were cry­ing about police tak­ing out mur­der­ous gang­sters, homi­cides were just over 500 annu­al­ly.
Criminals were run­ning away from Jamaica and Investments and Jamaicans in the Diaspora were pour­ing in.
Jamaicans in the ’80s were not stu­pid, they real­ized that in order for their stan­dard of liv­ing to improve they could not have mur­der­ous thugs in their midst, so no one real­ly paid much atten­tion to Flo O’Connor, Horace Levy or the others.

Neither O’Connor nor Levy received much trac­tion but some­one saw an open­ing to step into that space and make a name for her­self.
In stepped the White Jamaican baby doc­tor and before long she was an icon, a leg­end, she received a nation­al hon­or, and the entire nation­al secu­ri­ty appa­ra­tus was answer­able to her.
The long-held glue which bound our police depart­ment pro­fes­sion­als togeth­er, [Esprit de ‑Corps], was maligned as a blue wall of silence it was out the door.
It was­n’t a blue wall of silence, it was a bond which meant cops would give their own lives in sup­port of each oth­er when they are active­ly fight­ing for their lives.
Owen Ellington, the then Commissioner of Police, was too busy pro­mot­ing his friends and fam­i­ly to care that the depart­ment was in deep dis­tress.
Carolyn Gomez’s tox­ic influ­ence had seeped into the Police Academic cur­ricu­lum, and the coun­try was not train­ing cops any­more, it was now in the busi­ness of turn­ing out agents for JFJ.
The sad real­i­ty is that it took rough­ly two decades and thou­sands of inno­cent lives for kar­ma to catch up with Gomez and she was exposed as a fraud­u­lent pur­vey­or of gay porno­graph­ic smut to chil­dren.
Not only did they not take back the nation­al hon­or, but she was also not pros­e­cut­ed. Yes, white skin has the same pow­er in Jamaica as it does in America, it is privileged. 

The dam­age was already done.
Police offi­cers who placed their bod­ies between blood­thirsty killers and inno­cent cit­i­zens were them­selves por­trayed as extra­ju­di­cial killers.
The term “extra­ju­di­cial” was attached to every police-involved shoot­ing, nev­er mind that the guns recov­ered, the inno­cent dead and wound­ed.
The focus became that police were shoot­ing too many crim­i­nals.
Attention was suc­cess­ful­ly deflect­ed away from the homi­cide num­bers to the cops doing the heavy lift­ing.
(a) Perfectly legit­i­mate police fatal shoot­ings were por­trayed as [extra­ju­di­cial killings].
(b) Because plain­clothes cops were the offi­cers fac­ing down the crim­i­nals, and because plain­clothes cops made up only a small por­tion of the force at the time, rough­ly about (6 – 8%), those offi­cers were nec­es­sar­i­ly and ratio­nal­ly fea­tured in vio­lent con­fronta­tions with crim­i­nals.
© The Aura cre­at­ed as a result of the brav­ery and ded­i­ca­tion of those offi­cers (name-brand-cops) served as a use­ful deter­rent to those who would take life as well as those who would engage in gang activ­i­ties.
(d) Those offi­cers were nation­al heroes, not vil­lains. They nev­er received a nation­al hon­or.
Sure there were instances where cops stepped over the line, those actions can­not be denied and should nev­er be con­doned or cov­ered over.
But planes fall from the skies because of pilot error, peo­ple die on oper­at­ing tables, because sur­geons make mis­takes, cars, trucks and bus­es crash because dri­vers make mis­takes, patients die because nurs­es give incor­rect med­i­cine.
I’m not sure why police offi­cers who risk their lives unlike any of the afore­men­tioned, are held to a high­er stan­dard of scrutiny?

Neither the Governing polit­i­cal par­ty nor the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion, will come clean and tell the Jamaican peo­ple that their strat­e­gy has been a colos­sal dis­as­ter.
Neither will the crim­i­nal rights lob­by.
What is left of the police force has esti­mat­ed that there are well over two thou­sand gangs oper­at­ing in the small space of 4411 square miles.
Before it was only the poor and the busi­ness-peo­ple who were being mur­dered but of late a few politi­cians are hav­ing their domes pushed back as well.
Today the police are not engag­ing crim­i­nals as much, this writer is sup­port­ive of that posi­tion.
Why should offi­cers risk being dragged through a shit­ty sys­tem which favors crim­i­nals over them and inno­cent cit­i­zens?
The non-police, com­mis­sion­er of police, recent­ly said he is con­fi­dent that giv­en time every police offi­cer in Jamaica will be a human rights activists.
Every per­son who ever donned the uni­form of a police offi­cer with the right intent is a human rights activist.
It is the com­mit­ment to the rule of law, the pro­tec­tion of the weak which pro­pels them to run toward the dan­ger when every­one runs away from it.
What police offi­cers do not need is a rede­f­i­n­i­tion of polic­ing by some­one who was giv­en the top polic­ing role with­out a sin­gle idea of what polic­ing is.
Jamaicans cer­tain­ly need to rise up against these char­la­tans and frauds who talk about human rights but does not speak to the right their dead rel­a­tives had to the most impor­tant human right.
The right to life!

I am the King of the world’s most pow­er­ful coun­try, I find myself under inves­ti­ga­tions for var­i­ous and sundry breach­es of the laws.
Nevertheless, I lam­bast the pros­e­cu­tors dai­ly.
As if that is not enough, I replace the head of the Agency tasked with doing the Investigations of me, but I was cer­tain­ly not done.
I smeared and tar­nished the char­ac­ter of career pros­e­cu­tors and Investigators as well.
I had my min­ions drag them before the Congress and berat­ed and humil­i­at­ed them and then I fired them.
So they appoint­ed a spe­cial coun­sel which for all intents and pur­pos­es should be friend­ly to me because we are from the very same polit­i­cal party.

When my Attorney General recused him­self and failed to inter­fere in the inves­ti­ga­tions with a view to pro­tect­ing me from the Special Counsel, I fired him too.
I then replaced him with an unqual­i­fied lack­ey who bad-mouthed the Investigations on tele­vi­sion and talked about ways in which he would starve the Special Counsel’s Investigations of resources, even­tu­al­ly shut­ting it down.
There was a wide­spread out­cry and so I imme­di­ate­ly looked for a replace­ment of him who could pass muster with the old guard.
Never mind that I still want­ed an Attorney General who could get con­firmed but I need­ed one who had writ­ten a long mem­o­ran­dum detail­ing his dis­dain for the Special Counsel process and express­ing his sup­port for wider pow­ers for me.
Ah yes, I got my man.
He’s been there before and it seems like he can be trust­ed to do exact­ly what I want him to do.
con­firm him now.

Witch hunt, witch hunt, no col­lu­sion, no col­li­sion is my dai­ly tirade as I won­der about find­ing new ways to inter­fere in these inves­ti­ga­tions which are keep­ing me up at night.
Daily I call for the Investigations to end.
What?
I don’t care if oth­er peo­ple don’t get to demand that an inves­ti­ga­tion into their activ­i­ties gets stopped.
I don’t care that they don’t get to com­plain about the length of time inves­ti­ga­tions are tak­ing, I’m spe­cial.
Now my man is in place and he gets to decide whether that mul­ti-mil­lion Dollar inves­ti­ga­tion gets revealed to the Congress, much less the poor peas­antry.
Oh wait, ha-ha-ha, I just real­ized that even though the Investigations are about my con­duct, I’m allowed to decide on whether its find­ings gets revealed.
Oh s**t, what was I wor­ried about, I head the Justice Department b*****s?
Touché mother‑f*****s, ha, ha, ha.……!

So my boy did his thing after the Republican Special Counsel passed the report he wrote up to him.
He writes the Congress led by the Dumb-crats[sic] a lit­tle cov­er let­ter say­ing that the Special Counsel found no con­spir­a­cy between myself and the Russians.
He left them a lit­tle some­thing to yap about on the issue of inter­fer­ence.
As if it’s not my Justice Department, My FBI, my Country, I can damn well do as I please.

In sum­ming up.
You pay for inves­ti­gat­ing me.
I inter­fere, I get my boy to say no con­spir­a­cy was found.
I get my boy to say he decid­ed not to act on me inter­fer­ing in the inves­ti­ga­tions.
And no you can­not see the report, who do you think you are?
I decide what Democracy is. It is what I say it is.
All of you who sat there and watched and wait­ed these two years as talk­ing heads opined about what the Special Counsel’s inves­ti­ga­tions would find about my actions are real­ly dumb­er than me.
Do you real­ly think that this coun­try would allow the world to know that a hos­tile for­eign pow­er put me in office?
And many of you Libs call me dumb.
Who is dumb now?
Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.…..

When you think of some of the things hap­pen­ing in our coun­try it is dif­fi­cult to come away with­out think­ing that they are avoid­ing tried and proven fix­es inten­tion­al­ly.
Solutions to the coun­try’s cor­rup­tion prob­lem are absolute­ly not insur­mount­able. The Island’s lead­ers are not clue­less about this.
Why then would they con­tin­ue to allow Ministers of Government ?Members of Parliament and peo­ple in pub­lic bod­ies to get away with such high lev­els of crim­i­nal corruption?

It is incred­i­bly hard to make a case against those who talk about police cor­rup­tion.
Nevertheless, when we look at the cor­rupt acts com­mit­ted in the open by politi­cians it is breath­tak­ing­ly shock­ing.
From the Iran sug­ar deal. to Outameni, Petrojam, The Dutch
Trafigura scan­dal, the Cuban Light bulb scan­dal to the present day scan­dal involv­ing Ruel Reid nei­ther sides have clean hands.
Ask your­selves how Kern Spencer could walk away with­out being con­vict­ed in the Cuban light bulb scan­dal?
Then look at the so-called Judiciary and ask your­selves how a sit­ting Resident Magistrate could throw a mon­key wrench in the pros­e­cu­tion’s case and be pro­mot­ed instead of removed and imprisoned?

Want to talk about cor­rup­tion?
Lets look at the cor­rup­tion involved in the Firearm’s Licencing Authority today.
Law abid­ing Jamaicans who ful­fill every cri­te­ria and tick every box can hard­ly receive approval to pur­chase a firearm for their pro­tec­tion.
But a well con­nect­ed crim­i­nal with some mon­ey to toss around can eas­i­ly secure such approval.
This was a func­tion under the Police , much like the issuance of Passports.
The politi­cians promised that they would strip out the cor­rup­tion from the process when they removed both func­tions from the police.
Today both the Passports and the firearm process­es are two of the most cor­rupt organs of government.

My com­ments are in no way one of sup­port for those func­tions to be returned to the police, far from it.
I mere­ly intend to point to the across the board cor­rup­tion drain­ing the eco­nom­ic lifeblood from the coun­try.
The Customs depart­ment has always been a cesspool of cor­rup­tion, today more than ever it is a rot­ten morass of cor­rup­tion graft and bribes.
The Registrar General’s Department, you don’t pay you are not about to receive a birth cer­tifi­cate.
The Motor Vehicles Department is infa­mous for its cor­rupt exam­in­ers, no mat­ter how good a dri­ver you are you will not receive a pass­ing grade to secure a dri­vers license unless you pay up.
Inside the post office, they opened peo­ple’s mail and steal what­ev­er they want.
It is as a result of this across the board thiev­ery that Transparency International arrived at its rather gen­er­ous 84% cor­rupt rat­ing for Jamaica.
I fun­da­men­tal­ly believe that across all agen­cies of the over-bloat­ed gov­ern­ment bureau­cra­cy, it is some­where clos­er to 95% corrupt. 

It is against this back­ground that I con­tin­ue to call for greater train­ing, remu­ner­a­tions, and leg­isla­tive sup­port for the police.
It is against this back­ground that I call for the repeal of the INDECOM act, and greater invest­ments into the jus­tice deliv­ery process.
I believe that when there is pro­fes­sion­al­ism, trans­paren­cy, account­abil­i­ty, com­pe­ten­cy, hon­esty, and clar­i­ty in the jus­tice deliv­ery sys­tem those who work in the sys­tem has no choice but to uphold best prac­tices or leave.

On this score, nei­ther polit­i­cal par­ty has clean hands. In some cas­es, the argu­ments that those in oppo­si­tion are sim­ply mad because they are on the out­side look­ing in are not with­out mer­it.
I shall post the speech giv­en by Andrew Michael Holness when he ascend­ed to the top exec­u­tive posi­tion in our country.

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 school yard, 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, the 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, 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 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 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 to 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 in jobs while sat­is­fy­ing your well­be­ing.
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 in 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 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, Government is not the main investor, it is the Private Sector whether they be large enter­pris­es or small busi­ness. 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 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 a pro­duc­tive part­ner­ship with them to achieve inclu­sive growth and job cre­ation. There are many more areas of part­ner­ships that we must for­mal­ly pur­sue for 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: 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 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. Government has to improve its busi­ness process­es and become more effi­cient as a reg­u­la­tor and a ser­vice provider.

There is 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 the 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 cen­tre of the Caribbean. A cen­tre of finance, trade and com­merce, tech­nol­o­gy and inno­va­tion, and the cen­tre 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 is 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. A Jamaica where you feel safe to live, work and raise your chil­dren. A 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!

PNPYO CALLS FOR RUEL REID TO BE FIRED AS PRINCIPAL OF JC

The PNP Youth Organisation wel­comes news that the Principal of Jamaica College, Ruel Reid has been fired as Minister and has also resigned from the Senate. This devel­op­ment has only come about because of a dili­gent Parliamentary Opposition led by Dr. Peter Phillips, who called atten­tion to Mr. Reid’s stew­ard­ship over cor­rupt prac­tices at the Ministry.
That the Prime Minister has seen it fit to fire Mr. Reid, tells the pub­lic that what is being uncov­ered in Ministry of Education could very well be worse than what was unearthed at Petrojam. 

The PNPYO is there­fore demand­ing that Ruel Reid steps down as Principal of Jamaica College and not be allowed to serve on any State Boards in the near future. His pro­longed sec­ond­ment was already improp­er and to keep him in this posi­tion of lead­er­ship sends the wrong mes­sage to the stu­dents who would be under his influ­ence and guidance.The role of Principal must be held by one who is firm on prin­ci­ple, integri­ty and good judge­ment. Mr. Reid has proven that he does not meet such high stan­dards.
We fur­ther ask that the Custos of St. Andrew, HON. DR. PATRICIA DUNWELL review this mat­ter to deter­mine whether Mr. Reid could right­ly con­tin­ue to hold the office of Justice of the Peace (JP). The Ministry of Justice requires that a JP be a per­son of unques­tion­able integri­ty and who com­mands the respect and con­fi­dence of the local community. 

We believe that the Prime Minister’s loss of con­fi­dence in Ruel Reid to con­tin­ue his tenure as Minister and Senator is a clear indi­ca­tion that he is no longer suit­ed to bear the seal of such an office as Justice of the Peace. With infor­ma­tion yet unfold­ing, his actions may well war­rant a dis­missal on the grounds out­lined in Section 9, sub­sec­tion 4a(i and ii) of the Justices of the Peace Act, 2018.

— END —

In an unprece­dent­ed and unex­pect­ed move, Jamaica’s Prime Minister, Andrew Holness has fired Education Minister Ruel Reid.
Reid has also resigned from the Senate.

In a state­ment to the Nation Holness said the fol­low­ing.
This morn­ing I met with Minister Ruel Reid regard­ing cer­tain alle­ga­tions in the pub­lic domain.
In keep­ing with the prin­ci­ples of good gov­er­nance, I request­ed and received Minister Reid’s res­ig­na­tion. Minister Reid has also resigned from the Senate.
The Minister’s res­ig­na­tion will ensure that any inves­ti­ga­tion into mat­ters of con­cern will not be in any way imped­ed by his pres­ence or over­sight of the Ministry.
The Ministry of Education Youth and Information will now fall under the tem­po­rary super­vi­sion of the Office of the Prime Minister which will start its own review of the min­istry and its agencies.

According to local report­ing, the Auditor General’s Department is cur­rent­ly under­tak­ing a per­for­mance audit of the depart­ment.
It was, how­ev­er, the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion which is cred­it­ed with rais­ing ques­tions amidst reports of mis­use of pub­lic funds and cor­rup­tion at the edu­ca­tion min­istry and sug­gest­ed that it was equiv­a­lent to the scan­dal uncov­ered at Petrojam, the state-owned oil refin­ery. Opposition Leader Dr Peter Phillips, speak­ing dur­ing a post-Budget press con­fer­ence, said the alle­ga­tions are relat­ed direct­ly to Caribbean Maritime University and the use of funds sent to the min­istry by the HEART Trust for the Career Advancement Programme as well as the Technical, Vocational, Educational and Training (T‑VET) Rationalisation Project.(Jamaica Geaner​.com)

It is that kind of over­sight which the coun­try must encour­age rather than the tit-for-tat, back and forth which has char­ac­ter­ized oppo­si­tion par­ties behav­ior pre­vi­ous­ly.
Although there is far from suf­fi­cient infor­ma­tion in the pub­lic domain for a rea­son­able con­clu­sion to be drawn, the actions of the Prime Minister in fir­ing Reid, tells us that the sto­ry is seri­ous enough despite the PM’s con­tention that the min­is­ter’s removal will ensure that any inves­ti­ga­tion into mat­ters of con­cern will not be in any way imped­ed by Reid’s presence.

I urge the Prime Minister to call in the Police to con­duct a free and fair inves­ti­ga­tion even as the Auditor General’s office is work­ing on a par­al­lel track.
One inves­ti­ga­tion will not impede the oth­er, and should not be seen as anti­thet­i­cal to each oth­er.
Regardless of the out­come, the law must take its course. If breach­es of the laws are found fir­ings are not enough.
The full force of the law must be brought to bear as it would for any oth­er Jamaican.
It is about time that those entrust­ed with pub­lic posi­tions of trust under­stand that pub­lic offices and pub­lic posi­tions of pow­er are not oppor­tu­ni­ties to get rich.
It would also demon­strate that the Prime Minister is com­mit­ted to the rule of law and does not believe that the laws are only there for some people.

In the mean­time the Opposition PNP issued the fol­low­ing state­ment under the sig­na­ture of the oppo­si­tion leader Peter Phillips.

Statement on the Matter of Corruption at the Ministry of Education and Related Agencies
Dr. Peter Phillips, PNP President and Leader of the Opposition
March 20, 2019.
The hasty removal of the Minister of Education is in response to our demand at the Press Conference on Monday, March 18, 2019, for a full inves­ti­ga­tion of activ­i­ties at Ministry of Education in light of cred­i­ble reports of cor­rup­tion, nepo­tism and mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of pub­lic funds involv­ing the Ministry of Education and its asso­ci­at­ed agen­cies. Our report indi­cates the depth of the can­cer of cor­rup­tion and dis­hon­esty engulf­ing the Holness Administration.
Reports received indi­cate that not only the cen­tral Ministry but agen­cies includ­ing the Caribbean Maritime University, the National Education Trust and the HEART Trust which was sub­se­quent­ly trans­ferred to OPM have all been impli­cat­ed in the web of cor­rup­tion.
This is the 2^nd senior Minister of Government that has been forced to resign in less than a year under the shad­ow of cor­rup­tion affect­ing agen­cies for which they have been respon­si­ble and account­able. We should remem­ber also that inves­ti­ga­tions in the Petrojam scan­dal by the National Integrity Commission and MOCA are still not com­plet­ed. Furthermore, the Prime Minister who had car­riage of the Ministry of Energy has still not pro­vid­ed the rel­e­vant doc­u­men­ta­tion to the Parliamentary Committee.
I am again call­ing upon the Auditor General and the National Integrity Commission, as well as secu­ri­ty agen­cies includ­ing JCF, MOCA and the Financial Investigation Division (FID) to ful­ly inves­ti­gate the alle­ga­tions which have caused the Minister’s res­ig­na­tion. We expect them to act with integri­ty and urgency to hold those who broke the law account­able.
Indeed, we note that the Prime Minster has not yet said what was the basis on which he asked for the res­ig­na­tion of the MOE and we are call­ing up on him to do so imme­di­ate­ly.
Also, in light of dis­turb­ing reports, that the Security agen­cies are being ham­pered in the con­duct of their inves­ti­ga­tions, we are call­ing up on all the heads of the Security agen­cies to act with integri­ty and urgency, mind­ful that they rep­re­sent the line of defense against wan­ton cor­rup­tion and the abuse of tax­pay­ers mon­ey.
The People’s National Party stren­u­ous­ly objects to the Prime Minister’s deci­sion to take the Ministry of Education with­in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) and sub­ject to the Prime Minister’s per­son­al con­trol.
First of all, the Ministry of Education is much too impor­tant to be giv­en par­tial over­sight in the con­duct of day-to-day activ­i­ties, which are absolute­ly essen­tial to the future of our nation’s chil­dren.
Secondly, the expe­ri­ence of the role of the Office of the Prime Minister in its man­age­ment of Petrojam does not give the coun­try con­fi­dence.
We can­not for­get the infa­mous Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) in Petrojam which was done under Prime Minister Holness’ watch. He is yet to table all the doc­u­ments linked to the res­ig­na­tion of the for­mer Human Resource Manager at Petrojam, nor has he pro­vid­ed the rel­e­vant advice that the lawyers gave to Petrojam on this mat­ter.
The coun­try can­not afford the Office of the Prime Minister to act once again to cov­er up the mis­deeds of Minsters. The peo­ple of Jamaica deserve much better!

This sto­ry is devel­op­ing and may be updat­ed as more infor­ma­tion becomes available.

The congresswoman was smeared — nothing she said warranted the criticism she received. But progressives should not fall into the trap of denying that anti-Semitism exists on the left.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Back in February, Representative Ilhan Omar tweet­ed that American polit­i­cal lead­ers’ sup­port for Israel was “all about the Benjamins baby” — a Puff Daddy quote that some were quick to con­demn as invok­ing the anti-Semitic theme of Jews buy­ing influ­ence. The fresh­man con­gress­woman, who came to the United States as a refugee from Somalia at the age of 12, quick­ly issued an unequiv­o­cal apol­o­gy, say­ing she was “grate­ful for Jewish allies and col­leagues who are edu­cat­ing me on the painful his­to­ry of anti-Semitic tropes.”

A cou­ple of weeks lat­er, after a town-hall meet­ing at Washington’s Busboys and Poets, where Omar remarked that she want­ed “to talk about the polit­i­cal influ­ence in this coun­try that says it is OK for peo­ple to push for alle­giance to a for­eign coun­try,” Omar’s oppo­nents accused her of claim­ing American Jews had a “dual loy­al­ty” — anoth­er vin­tage anti-Semitic trope. Even though she was clear­ly refer­ring to the pres­sure she her­self felt as a mem­ber of Congress and a sup­port­er of Palestinian rights, that didn’t stop the House Democratic lead­er­ship from mov­ing a res­o­lu­tion that, while it didn’t men­tion Omar by name, was clear­ly aimed at her. 

Yet, by the time that House res­o­lu­tion came to a vote, the text con­demned both anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim big­otry as “hate­ful expres­sions of intol­er­ance” — along with white-suprema­cist attacks “tar­get­ing tra­di­tion­al­ly per­se­cut­ed peo­ples, includ­ing African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and oth­er peo­ple of col­or, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty, immi­grants, and oth­ers.” When the res­o­lu­tion passed by a mar­gin of 407 to 23, with almost the entire Democratic del­e­ga­tion, includ­ing Omar, vot­ing in favor, some of the same com­men­ta­tors who’d con­demned the Democratic lead­er­ship for “smear­ing” Omar now decid­ed the episode had end­ed hap­pi­ly after all. 

Read more here http://​then​ation​.com/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​i​l​h​a​n​-​o​m​a​r​-​a​n​t​i​-​s​e​m​i​t​i​s​m​-​a​i​p​ac/

One of the most dif­fi­cult things to accom­plish is to get peo­ple to think out­side their com­fort zones.
We, humans, are cer­tain­ly prod­ucts of our envi­ron­ment.
As for us Jamaicans who were raised on JLP and PNP ortho­doxy, see­ing rea­son out­side of the con­fines of those polit­i­cal blink­ers is near­ly impos­si­ble.
Unfortunately for the coun­try, because of this blink­ered men­tal­i­ty, the lead­er­ship of the two major polit­i­cal par­ties has very lit­tle to fear from engag­ing in cor­rup­tion and step­ping out­side the bounds of the law.

A rev­o­lu­tion­ary change is nec­es­sary, the immi­nence is up to the peo­ple.
I believe it was Norman Manley who was cred­it­ed with the state­ment quote;‘There can be no real vic­to­ry with­out a few bro­ken skulls.“
Whether Jamaica’s evo­lu­tion will be one of a pop­u­lar peo­ple’s upris­ing or an intel­lec­tu­al awak­en­ing is impos­si­ble to say.
But if the blood-let­ting and the car­nal­i­ty are to be halt­ed there will have to be a shift, a par­a­digm shift even,_______________ in the way we think, in the way we act, in the way we expect our coun­try to be run.
Presently there is lit­tle sign that we are even cog­nizant of the right path to take.
The new nor­mal is the dai­ly killings with the bod­ies of entire fam­i­lies wiped out by gang­sters.
The new nor­mal is lit­tle babies describ­ing in graph­ic detail the sex­u­al organs of their par­ents and the actions their par­ents engage in sex­u­al­ly.
The new nor­mal is the record­ing of that despi­ca­ble nar­ra­tion from a child no more than an infant and the pro­mul­ga­tion of it on social media for likes.

Often we hear of a desire to return to the way we were. It is incred­i­bly dif­fi­cult to imag­ine a return to the way we were when many who cre­at­ed the “way we were” are no longer around.
Through the pas­sage of time, death, immi­gra­tion, and prob­a­bly more con­se­quen­tial the change forced on the silent major­i­ty to remain silent, at the per­il of vio­lent death, our coun­try has changed for­ev­er.
When the mass of crim­i­nals and oth­ers being returned to the coun­try, some after a life­time of crime abroad, are added to the mix, it seems to me the sta­tus quo is here to stay.

Contrary to the hyper­bol­ic argu­ments you hear and the faux attempts at patri­o­tism the vast major­i­ty of Jamaicans have told poll­sters they would emi­grate if they could.
In fact, those who make the loud­est noise about not leav­ing Jamaica have been those who have not been able to leave.
In 2015 alone The United States Embassy in Kingston con­firmed that Jamaicans spent J$3 bil­lion) try­ing to obtain visas to the United States.
And that is only to one coun­try. Every day Jamaicans line up at the British and Candian con­sulates as well as con­sulates of oth­er coun­tries try­ing to find a way to have a bet­ter life.
According to a 2016 sur­vey com­mis­sioned by Respect, Jamaica and the local office of UNICEF, 81 per­cent of Jamaica’s youth between 14 and 40 years of age would leave the coun­try imme­di­ate­ly if they could. 
The only coun­try they ruled out as a pos­si­ble choice was the nation of Afghanistan.
As far as Transparency International is con­cerned our coun­try is 84% cor­rupt.
These are only a few of the neg­a­tive trends which dic­tates that regard­less of who is in pow­er polit­i­cal­ly, the real­i­ty is that we are head­ed in the wrong direc­tion.
There seems to be no under­stand­ing that their eco­nom­ic sur­vival and growth is hinged on their abil­i­ty to remove vio­lent crime and cor­rup­tion from the soci­ety.
Failing which, regard­less of the smoke and mirrors and the mirages, the Island could be doing expo­nen­tial­ly bet­ter by attract­ing new Investments. Those Investments are out­side the Chinese takeover which is anoth­er iter­a­tion of slav­ery.
Nevertheless, the empha­sis is on whose par­ty is in pow­er so that scarce hand­outs may be derived.
It was sad when it first start­ed, it is sad today, yet the real­ly sad thing is that we appear to be frozen in accept­ing that we can­not change it.
Instead of root­ing out the mur­der­ers and demand­ing there is no more cor­rup­tion, soci­ety seem­ing­ly has evolved into accep­tance of cor­rup­tion and vio­lent mur­ders as its cho­sen path.

We should nev­er grade our­selves against the world’s worst actors. Instead, we should look at what works for the best and see whether we can co-opt some of their best prac­tices and see if they can work in our unique sit­u­a­tion.
Make no mis­take about it, the Jamaica of yester-year is no more, not only has the val­ues changed, but the peo­ple have also changed.
The sad real­i­ty is that for many Jamaicans who yearn for the land of peace and seren­i­ty of the past, that ship has long sailed.