When Going Over And Beyond To Do Right Become A Futuristic Path To Wrongdoing .…

In what amount to an extreme case of juvenile Editorial lunacy the Jamaica Gleaner’s Editorial page made a total mockery of rational thinking as it seeks to play politics where frankly it should be heaping praise.
The issue involve the Minister of local government Desmond McKenzie’s son applying for a job at the National Solid Waste Management Agency(NSWMA).

♦The edi­to­r­i­al stat­ed quote: It has emerged that Desmond McKenzie’s 35-year-old son, some­time in the recent past, and at his own voli­tion, applied for a vacant posi­tion at the NSWMA, was inter­viewed, and deter­mined suit­able for the post. “His expe­ri­ence would also do well for the posi­tion, so we offered him the job,” said Colonel Pryce.

Colonel Daniel Pryce, is the act­ing CEO of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA).
♦From all appear­ances the junior McKenzie applied for the post while the pre­vi­ous admin­is­tra­tion was in power.
♦The NSWMA con­clud­ed that the appli­cant, mis­ter McKenzie , based on his expe­ri­ence would do well in the posi­tion and as a result the posi­tion was offered to him.
♦Out of an abun­dance of cau­tion so as not to engage in any action which could be con­strued to be Nepotism, the Chief Executive offi­cer of NSAWA Colonel David Pryce sought approval from the Minister under whose port­fo­lio the NSWMA falls and who hap­pen to just be the father of the applicant.
♦Correctly and most refresh­ing­ly min­is­ter Desmond McKenzie gave instruc­tions that his son not be hired by the Agency.

The Gleaner argues that the NSWMA has a board appoint­ed by the min­is­ter, to which the exec­u­tive direc­tor reports. The min­is­ter estab­lish­es broad pol­i­cy, which is left to the board to refine and trans­mit to the man­age­ment and staff for imple­men­ta­tion. In day-to-day oper­a­tions, the buck ought to stop with the CEO.

That is exact­ly what the CEO David Pryce did.

Yet in a shock­ing turn­about the Editorial unwit­ting­ly went on quote: Colonel Pryce, out of what he believed to be “an abun­dance of cau­tion”, but which was tan­ta­mount to a weak abro­ga­tion of respon­si­bil­i­ty, advised nei­ther his chair­man nor the board about the prospec­tive hire, but the port­fo­lio min­is­ter. He sought approval three rungs up the chain of com­mand. But worse, Desmond McKenzie assumed that his role includ­ed involve­ment in mid-lev­el human-resource employ­ment mat­ters. “I gave imme­di­ate instruc­tions that the trans­ac­tion should be dis­con­tin­ued immediately,”.
It went on :“But what­ev­er his moti­va­tion, Mr McKenzie only suc­ceed­ed in impos­ing him­self in an area of gov­ern­ment in which he has no place, there­by set­ting a dan­ger­ous prece­dent from which, we hope, he is will­ing to retreat. At the same time, the mat­ter to which we refer demon­strat­ed both poor judge­ment and a lack of appre­ci­a­tion of func­tion­al author­i­ty on the part of Colonel Daniel Pryce, the act­ing CEO of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA), for which he deserves a severe rep­ri­mand from his board of gov­er­nors” .Editorial: Mr McKenzie, The HR Man

In an effort to appear less ridicu­lous­ly juve­nile the Editorial argues that Quote:  We believe that the deprived job seek­er, depend­ing on the state of the trans­ac­tion, may be enti­tled to legal relief for breach of con­tract, which he should pur­sue against the min­is­ter as well as Colonel Pryce and the board of the NSWMA.

This has got to be the most extreme exam­ple of Orwellian log­ic ever. The Minister in keep­ing with the theme of the new admin­is­tra­tion stat­ed inten­tions to eschew cor­rup­tion and have max­i­mum trans­paren­cy , went over and above to ensure there was no nepo­tism, not in actu­al­i­ty , Not in perception.
Not only should the Minister be com­mend­ed, the CEO of the NSWMA should be com­mend­ed for his vig­i­lance and lead­er­ship in inform­ing the Minister or any­one above him of the neg­a­tive optics of a poten­tial hire of the younger McKenzie could con­vey. Jamaica is a small coun­try it is almost assured that the CEO of the NSWMA knew McKenzie before he took over respon­si­bil­i­ty for the NSWMA. The CEO may have known the Minister before the min­is­ter was the Minister,
Whats wrong with the CEO of the Agency inform­ing the Minister that this may not look good?
What would be the reac­tion of the Editorial board had this hire materialized?
Is the Gleaner mad that cor­rec­tive steps were tak­en to ward off appear­ances of Nepotism which it would most assured­ly use to exco­ri­ate the new Administration?
The Gleaner Editorial went on “We hope that this is not the start of a pat­tern of oper­a­tional inter­ven­tion by Minister McKenzie into agen­cies with­in his port­fo­lio. Such behav­ior tends to go ter­ri­bly wrong. Discrimination, then, may be of a more sin­is­ter kind.”

Not only have the Editorial made the Author seem sil­ly and pathet­ic it made him/​her out to be a sooth­say­er who can see into the future. Forecasting future and poten­tial bad behavior.
The Gleaner sim­ply can­not wait for bad behav­ior it is mak­ing good behav­ior bad.
In the bib­li­cal book of Luke begin­ning in verse 37 a woman broke an alabaster box of pre­cious oint­ment and washed Jesus’ feet she also used her tears to wash his feet while using her hair to dry them.
The Pharisees in atten­dance were beside them­selves in anger at what they thought was a waste of a box of pre­cious oint­ment. Jesus chas­tised them and their nar­row argu­ments that the oint­ment could have been sold and the pro­ceeds giv­en to the poor. In response Jesus told them the poor would be here for all time but he would be gone soon.
I use this metaphor because as the Pharisees failed to see the wom­an’s sin­cer­i­ty and love for Christ so does the Gleaner’s Editorial fail to see the good of the actions of the CEO of the NSWMA and the Minister.
The Editorial con­firm my belief that in our quest to effect change we will some­time have to ignore the noise of even the peo­ple we aim to help.
Jamaica is no dif­fer­ent , entrenched polit­i­cal patri­o­tism and nepo­tism is a large part of every­day life. It has been a part of the land­scape for so long that many peo­ple are shocked that it is some­thing good.

Unfortunately for the Gleaner’s Editorial it too has lost it’s moral com­pass. Wrong is now right,attempts to avoid those wrongs are por­trayed as wrong, or in the Gleaner’s case, a poten­tial­ly futur­is­tic path to wrong. Yea I know it’s convoluted.….
You know we have lost our way when we are chastis­ing seri­ous attempts to do what’s right. As was in the Bible not much has changed with mankind despite the pass­ing of Millenniums humans remain hypocrites.