As the saying goes “Houston we got a problem”, who remember when they said the police were selling Passports (they were)?
I believe we all remember that.
At the time it reached critical mass, the government of the day removed that function from the hands of the corrupt police[sic].
They created a whole new bureaucracy to handle that function a resizing of Government if you will.
Ok, now who remember when they said police were selling gun license(they were)?
We all do.
The government removed that function from the hands of the corrupt police[sic].
Another Government bureaucracy was born.
The police force is still largely corrupt so INDECOM was born. Another Government bureaucracy, bigger Government yet the problem persist.
Yes, folks, it was alleged dishonesty of reporting which necessitated the birth of INDECOM.
Oh, oh did I mention that a Public Defenders office has been established too?
Soooooo.…..
Anyway, the Motor vehicle Department has been selling drivers licenses from as long as, well forever.
The Customs Department has been ripping off Jamaicans bringing goods into the country for as long as that department has been in existence.
Additionally, the loss of revenue to the state’s coffers is unimaginable, never mind the negative effects it has had on commerce.
So too has the Registrar Generals Department. If you want to get a birth certificate, or as we Jamaicans say, birth (cer-fi tikit) you better have some money or be prepared to wait and wait and wait.
The Political class, they simply steal everything that isn’t nailed down.
They borrowed, squandered and pilfered so much money, that generations of Jamaicans yet unborn are indebted up to their eyeballs.
In an effort to place some semblance of control on that the Contractor General’s Department was born.
Another expansion of Government.
By now you may have guessed where I am going with this dribble, you see it was never about the tiefin police bway dem, as I have said repeatedly, at the risk of sounding biased, it is hard to make a case against the police alone, when we have a rather dirty pool to pull our public and private officials from.
The inescapable fact is that we have a society which is inherently corrupt.
Don’t get me wrong many of our people are decent God-fearing people. What is lacking in my estimation is a lack is moral leadership.
When our political business and religious leaders are viewed as corrupt it creates a domino effect of” I’m gonna get mine too”.
The undeniable fact is that most Jamaicans believe their public and private officials are corrupt. As a consequence, they feel justified in getting their’s by whatever means necessary.
It is not out of the ordinary for people to turn down a job because quote” nu hustling nu de pan di wuk”.
In recent years the Berlin based Transparency International the leading global non-governmental organization devoted to combating corruption
has ruled that the Jamaican society is inherently corrupt. Out of a total of 176 countries, Jamaica is rated 83 not good.
Professor Trevor Munroe, author of a report published by Transparency International has argued that Legislative reform is needed to ensure “greater transparency and accountability in political parties and in the public sector.
Professor Munroe said that it is an urgent requirement for strengthening national integrity systems, not just in Jamaica but the broader Caribbean.
We have an integrity problem which will not be solved by creating more agencies focused on corruption.
Larger Government does precious little as we have seen from the massive expansion of Government as a result of this malady.
We simply cannot expand Government any further as we look to finding a solution for this problem. We need to look within.
We have become a people who measure our success by our excess.
As a business owner in the New York area, I have seen that excess in the presumptuous demands Jamaicans at home makes on their loved ones in America.
Every laptop computer, every cellular device, even data cards must have optimum storage.
On the rare occasion, I venture to inquire why people in Jamaica are demanding the most expensive electronic devices which they are receiving as gifts and the buyer can hardly afford, people, open up detailing their disgust at this new level of gall.
Greed is a huge driver of the murder rate presently sweeping our country, on the other hand, greed of the white color variety is eating away at the social economic and moral structure of our society.
How we arrest that cancer is anybody’s guess.