REALLY ?

How can a Socialist Government take a Scalpel to the bloat­ed pub­lic sec­tor when it’s entire phi­los­o­phy is one of Government doing for peo­ple what they should do for themselves.

The present Administration does not under­stand how a mar­ket econ­o­my works, as such it becomes impos­si­ble for the coun­try to claw it’s way out of the present cri­sis it’ faces.
Anyone who believes the present path dic­tat­ed by the IMF is a path to rebuild­ing the Nation’s econ­o­my is delusional.
The path laid out by the fund is designed to ensure the coun­try is able to pay back to the fund what it owes with interest.
Of course if the peo­ple were wide-eyed they would real­ize this is an unsus­tain­able path to nowhere.
Wherever the IMF is hap­py social dis­or­der becomes the nat­ur­al order.
I wish the Editor would explain how this path will lead to pros­per­i­ty, or even a seri­ous reduc­tion of the nations debt.

HERE ARE SOME SUGGESTIONS TO THE SOCIALIST GOVERNMENT OPERATING IN KINGSTON AND THE ADMINISTRATIONS OPERATIVES AT THE EDITORIAL BOARD OF THE GLEANER COMPANY.

(1) REDUCE CRIME
You accom­plish this by telling your sup­port­ers that there are no safe havens any place, in any Garrison con­trolled by your party.
Then dis­man­tle the Garrisons.
No PM Miller, Garrisons do not have to have walls.
Equip, train, and pay the police.
Cut the bloat­ed pub­lic sec­tor workforce.
Yes that includes polit­i­cal hacks who are a drain on the coun­try’s mea­ger resources, . Yes fam­i­ly mem­bers and friends are included.
Pass laws com­men­su­rate with the rapid­ly chang­ing times . Penalties should put seri­ous offend­ers behind bars for long peri­ods of time . Seek to reha­bil­i­tate non-vio­lent offenders.

(2) ELIMINATE BUREAUCRACY.
Cut unnec­es­sary restric­tions on imports, there­by remov­ing the pro­tec­tion accord­ed cer­tain sec­tors of the pri­vate sector.
A pri­vate sec­tor should be open­ly com­pet­i­tive. Those who can­not com­pete will be weed­ed out.
An open com­pet­i­tive pri­vate sec­tor dri­ves down prices to consumers.
(3) ELIMINATE CORRUPTION.
Remove fam­i­ly friends and loy­al­ists from the pub­lic sec­tor pay­roll. Slash non-essen­tial work­ers , orga­nize to get them loans so they may go to school or do start up businesses.
(4) LOWER TAXES.
Self explanatory.
(5) BROADEN TAX NET.
Bring more small oper­a­tors into com­pli­ance this will relieve the bur­den on PAYE workers.
(6) DIVERSIFY ENERGY SOURCES.
Jamaica has no short­age of sun and wind. Have Industry and Commerce get off their fat rear-ends and go seek investors who are inter­est­ed in help­ing to devel­op our Solar and wind capa­bil­i­ties. There is no rea­son Jamaica should be addict­ed to dirty oil.
(7) MAINTAIN AND BUILD THE NATION’S VITAL INFRASTRUCTURE.
Developing roads , water and elec­tric­i­ty , reduces urban sprawl, encour­ages rur­al devel­op­ment and builds the economy.
Adopt these sim­ple steps and watch Private sec­tor invest­ment flood our coun­try. Do these and guar­an­teed we have to turn some investors away.
There is no rea­son Jamaicans should be liv­ing in a pover­ty-strick­en crime infest­ed hell-hole.
That is how a nation is built , not on pseudo/​socialist give-aways.

The Jamaican Government through it’s Attorney General Patrick Atkinson, has secured an Injunction from the Supreme Court intend­ed to force sick police offi­cers back to work.
The gist of the Injunction is that the police is to cease and desist from it’s indus­tri­al action for a peri­od of 28 days and return to the bar­gain­ing table with the Government.
Sounds like a fair bit of adju­di­ca­tion right?
Not so fast… Atkinson buoyed by what he thought was the final blud­geon­ing tool with which he would crush the low­ly rank-and-file cops, declared that fail­ing to com­ply with the Injunction would be tan­ta­mount to con­tempt of court with penal­ty includ­ing Government con­fis­ca­tion of police offi­cers property.
Clearly this cor­rupt Government of the intel­lec­tu­al­ly chal­lenged Simpson Miller is look­ing to start a civ­il war in the Island nation.

Simpson Miller and her band of incom­pe­tents, must know that despite plac­ing it’s func­tionar­ies in crit­i­cal posi­tions of civ­il soci­ety , includ­ing the courts, that it would be ask­ing for war were they to try to enforce that Injunction.
In fact the Jamaican Newspapers are report­ing that over 1,000 cops had report­ed sick out of a force of 12.000. After the Injunction was issued over 3.000 offi­cers report­ed sick.
News flash to the lack­eys on the Supreme Court, if a Doctor say the cops are sick, guess what ?
They are sick and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.
What cheek?
Confiscation of property?
This Administration, just wel­comed Barack Obama the President of the United States to Jamaica. The Central Intelligence Agency is patent­ly aware that Jamaica is inher­ent­ly cor­rupt. The Agency is also aware that the régime does not sup­port or respect police offi­cers and the rule of law.
Why did Obama legit­imize the Portia Simpson Miller Government by vis­it­ing Jamaica at this time?
There is no oth­er expla­na­tion oth­er than his desire to push the Homosexual Agenda on Jamaica.

The Police Federation, the Union which rep­re­sents Rank and file mem­bers of the depart­ment had already indi­cat­ed it“s will­ing­ness to go back to the bar­gain­ing table to dis­cuss the issue of salaries and ben­e­fits. The Government for it’s part, had all the time in the world to come up with a pack­age for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers that was less insulting.
Using the courts as an intend­ed tool of intim­i­da­tion to pub­lic sec­tor work­ers is dis­grace­ful. It’s also illu­mi­nat­ing to the nation the con­tempt the Kleptomaniac inept admin­is­tra­tion has for ordi­nary work­ing people.

According to a reli­able sources the infla­tion rate in Jamaica was record­ed at 4.40 per­cent in April of 2015.
Over a 12 month peri­od Jamaica’s Inflation rate fluc­tu­ates between a low of 4 and a high of 9.7%.
A pay increase of 3% in the first year does not even cov­er the cost of inflation.
Adopting a pos­ture of a plan­ta­tion own­er to pub­lic sec­tor work­ers is not exact­ly a pre­scrip­tion for social order.
It is impor­tant that these very Police Officers, Nurses, Teachers and oth­er pub­lic sec­tor work­ers, remem­ber the way the Government respond­ed to their legit­i­mate demand for a liv­able wage.
The cops demand is even more just, in light of what they face daily.
They should nev­er for­get nor for­give this out­ra­geous affront.

Opposition Spokesperson on National Security Derrick Smith has unleashed a scathing response to the Government’s Injunction in the Courts designed to force mem­bers of the police depart­ment on sick-out back to work.
I gen­er­al­ly nev­er agree with any­thing Smith had to say. I was­n’t con­vinced that Smith who pre­vi­ous­ly held the National Security Portfolio was suf­fi­cient­ly sup­port­ive of the Police.
Many of my friends dis­agree with me on that but I reserve the right to be wrong.
I must admit how­ev­er that Smith’s com­ments are spot on.

SMITH STATED:
The tem­po­rary injunc­tion the Government has secured from the Supreme Court bar­ring the police from tak­ing indus­tri­al action not only serves to inten­si­fy the esca­lat­ing wage nego­ti­a­tion cri­sis, but brings the “arro­gance and bul­ly­ing tac­tics being employed by the Government into sharp focus”.

“The Government’s move to com­pel the police back to work by way of an injunc­tion will not improve the deep­en­ing indus­tri­al rela­tions row and bring us no clos­er to restor­ing nor­mal­i­ty.” “In fact, the injunc­tion only serves to fur­ther pro­voke the police and inten­si­fy the antag­o­nism that char­ac­ter­izes the rela­tion­ship between the police and the Government at this time. Instead of resort­ing to bul­ly tac­tics and fur­ther oppress­ing the hard-work­ing men and women of the con­stab­u­lary, the Government needs to move quick­ly in mak­ing a bet­ter offer and ulti­mate­ly arriv­ing at a settlement,”.

My sen­ti­ments exact­ly , but what real­ly excit­ed me about Derrick Smith’s com­ments is this.
“What I find most dis­turb­ing is that the Government sat seem­ing­ly unper­turbed and allowed the sit­u­a­tion to esca­late to the point where the Police Federation felt it had no option but to mobi­lize its mem­bers in stag­ing a sick-out. What is even more dis­turb­ing is that the nation­al secu­ri­ty min­is­ter, who, if no one else in the Government does, should have the inter­ests of the police at heart, has expend­ed no dis­cernible effort in advanc­ing their wel­fare, but saw it fit to resort to bul­ly­ing tac­tics on Tuesday by call­ing on them to return to work.”

Not only has Bunting showed he does not care about the plight of the work­ing cops on the beat, some of whom pro­vide 24 hour secu­ri­ty to him at the risk to their own lives, he total­ly mis­quot­ed the per­cent­age Government offered to rank and file cops.
If Minister Bunting had noth­ing pos­i­tive to say all he had to do is sim­ply remain silent.

A great Jamaican proverb taught me by my great aunt is (yu must tek sleep mark death) .
The police depart­ment is a large block of votes. Police offi­cers have incred­i­ble sway and influ­ence on mem­bers of their fam­i­lies, that includes how they vote.
I hope they learn and have mem­o­ries like Elephants.
In some con­stituen­cies the dif­fer­ence between win­ning and los­ing is a few dozen votes. The votes of offi­cers can be the dif­fer­ence in return­ing Jamaica to sanity.
Whether Derrick Smith is gen­uine in his broad­side against the Government, or he is sim­ply pos­tur­ing, his com­ments are nonethe­less correct.

The Police depart­ment has over 12.000 mem­bers . Members of the Gazetted Ranks who are mem­bers of the civ­il ser­vice are not sub­ject to this wage dis­pute. Rank and file mem­bers must extri­cate them­selves from the typ­i­cal “licky-licky “men­tal­i­ty which has char­ac­ter­ized the way they look at the polit­i­cal game and make deci­sions that will ulti­mate­ly ben­e­fit them and their fam­i­lies going forward.
This par­ty has nev­er placed nation­al secu­ri­ty on the front burner.
This wage dis­pute is not the only indi­ca­tor that the admin­is­tra­tion does not care about them.
Members com­plain they do not have uni­forms nor boots , how dis­grace­ful is that?
The Peoples’ National Party has always been a par­ty which want­ed crime to flour­ish as a kind of a “wink-and-a-nod” to it’s sup­port­ers when they are in office.
It’s a kind of pay back to the peo­ple. One of the many unscrupu­lous things they do to win and hold onto state power.
The Police have a choice to make.…

“THE THREAT LEVEL WAS VERY HIGH”
Deputy Commissioner of Police Clifford Blake tes­ti­fied yes­ter­day that police per­son­nel would have been mas­sa­cred if they had gone into Tivoli Gardens with­out the aid of the Jamaica Defense Force.

This is a crit­i­cal and use­ful assess­ment by Blake, how­ev­er in the inter­est of clar­i­ty it is impor­tant to expand on what that means. The police need­ed the assets of the Military not just it’s man­pow­er but the armor need­ed for force protection.
Blake spoke to that under ques­tion­ing, stat­ing that the police’s focus was the safe­ty of its offi­cers and law-abid­ing cit­i­zens, and cor­rect­ly so.
It is par­tic­u­lar­ly dif­fi­cult to min­i­mize casu­al­ty in what was a war when the ter­rain is against you. In war­fare the forces which occu­py the high ground always has the tac­ti­cal advantage.
Tivoli Gardens like some oth­er Government built hous­ing devel­op­ments are high rise struc­tures , when peo­ple liv­ing in these enclaves are allowed to flirt the rules and thumb their noses at the rule of law what we get is what hap­pened there in 2010.
As a front line cop I took fire in sev­er­al of Jamaica’s Garrisons, Tivoli Gardens included.
What real­ly piss­es me off is pre­ten­tious know-noth­ings who have vary­ing ideas of how the police and mil­i­tary should have han­dled, what was clear­ly an act of war declared on the authen­tic­i­ty of the Jamaican state by forces loy­al to Coke.
It is very easy for peo­ple who wet their pants at the sound of a car back-fir­ing to get on their com­put­ers and be arm-chair generals.
One thing Jamaican cops nev­er lack is bravery.
What they lack are resources , sup­port from their polit­i­cal lead­ers and a nation deserv­ing of their sacrifice.
Deputy Commissioner of police Glenmore Hinds cap­tured it exact­ly when he said “the Jamaican peo­ple are for­ev­er indebt­ed to the secu­ri­ty forces”. Many laid down their lives so that the pre­ten­tious Monday morn­ing Quarter-Backs can con­tin­ue to have the free­dom to grandstand.
Without their sac­ri­fice Jamaica would be a total­ly dif­fer­ent place..

The Jamaica Labor Party has strug­gled with a per­cep­tion prob­lem for ages.
Correctly or incor­rect­ly, there is a per­cep­tion that the Party is a par­ty of rich mulat­toes from uptown, who have no idea how the mass­es live.
This is not exact­ly true. I am a poor dark skinned boy from North East Saint Catherine who was raised on good con­ser­v­a­tive val­ues, yet I saw my val­ues enshrined in the poli­cies of the Labor Party.
With that said it does not mat­ter that it is not the true if that per­cep­tion is allowed to go unchallenged.
It is worse when those jock­ey­ing for pow­er, should the par­ty ever see elect­ed office again, con­tin­ue to do every­thing in their pow­er to show arro­gance and a sense of supe­ri­or­i­ty and enti­tle­ment to others.

I ran across this let­ter in the Jamaica Gleaner writ­ten by a promi­nent JLP wannabe elect­ed official.Normally I would not pay any atten­tion to this non­sense , but this guy seem to have a real sense of enti­tle­ment, I have had a cou­ple of dust-ups with him on social media on pre­vi­ous occa­sions. He has always demon­strat­ed a sense of enti­tle­ment and arrogance.
I thought I would incor­po­rate the entire­ty of his let­ter to the Gleaner and com­ment on it.
My inten­tion is not to beat up on this guy up but to maybe expose him so that he may see the fol­ly of his ways. Maybe Andrew Holness will cor­ral him or bet­ter yet get rid of him.

Here’s what he wrote .

This is an open letter to the commissioner of police, Dr Carl Williams.

Re: (1) The func­tion­ing of the Half-Way-Tree Police Station on Saturday, May 23, 2015; (2) attor­neys-at-law required to pro­duce iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards from the General Legal Council.

I wish to share my expe­ri­ence with your con­sta­bles on Saturday, May 23 at approx­i­mate­ly 4 p.m. at the Half-Way Tree Police Station.

(A) Facts

(1) That day, I was called ear­ly in the after­noon by a con­cerned cit­i­zen with respect to the tak­ing into cus­tody of Glenroy Ricardo Walker on Friday, May 22, along Anderson Road in Woodford Park in St Andrew by Jamaica Constabulary Force con­sta­bles. I was told he was being held at the Half-Way Tree Police Station.

(2) I was asked to attend upon the Half-Way Tree Police Station to ascer­tain: (i) whether Mr Walker was actu­al­ly in cus­tody there and (ii) what he was being charged for.

(3) On arriv­ing at the Half-Way Tree Police Station, I parked by the hold­ing area to the back of the said sta­tion. I went to the two plain-clothes per­sons seat­ed at the desk and intro­duced myself. No one seat­ed intro­duced them­selves as would be com­mon courtesy.

(4) I was asked by the two seat­ed per­sons to show iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. I told them I did­n’t have any iden­ti­fi­ca­tion from the General Legal Council (GLC) to iden­ti­fy myself as an attor­ney-at-law. I was told by the man and the woman that I had to pro­duce an iden­ti­fi­ca­tion card.

(5) I stat­ed that lawyers did­n’t get IDs from the GLC and repeat­ed that I did­n’t have any such ID. I pro­ceed­ed to ask if they had in their cus­tody one Glenroy Ricardo Walker.

(6) The two plain-clothes con­sta­bles told me they did­n’t know that name and that I was to go to the front of the Half-Way Tree Police Station for more infor­ma­tion. Another female cor­po­ral then sat on the bench by the female plain-clothes con­sta­ble and in an unpleas­ant tone asked me my name. I gave my name again and she, too, asked me for identification.

(7) I repeat­ed to her that I did­n’t have any iden­ti­fi­ca­tion from the General Legal Council to prove I was an attor­ney-at-law. She then told me I was not allowed in that area and I had to leave now.

(8) I then went to the front of the Half-Way Tree Police Station, where­upon I called back the con­cerned cit­i­zen who had called me ear­li­er that after­noon about Mr Walker to ascer­tain if he had his infor­ma­tion in fact cor­rect. The con­cerned cit­i­zen gave me a tele­phone num­ber for one Superintendent Bailey and told me that that was where Mr Walker had been tak­en into custody.

(9) After call­ing but not get­ting through to the num­ber, Supt Bailey called me on my cel­lu­lar with­in a very short peri­od of time. I told him who I was, he had no clue who I was either, and after explain­ing all in para­graphs (1), (2) and (5) above, I asked him if he could help. He was quite unhelpful.

(10) I then pro­ceed­ed to ask for the super­in­ten­dent in charge of the sta­tion at the front desk and was told that that offi­cer was not there.

(11) I was then direct­ed to a sergeant seat­ed in a room by the front desk and I again told him who I was and asked if he had Mr Walker in cus­tody. He, too, asked me for iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and I had to repeat I did­n’t have any iden­ti­fi­ca­tion from the General Legal Council (GLC) to iden­ti­fy myself as an attorney-at-law.

(12) He then told me I had to check with the con­sta­bles at the back of the Half-Way Tree Police Station to ascer­tain if Mr Walker was actu­al­ly in their custody.

(13) Obviously get­ting nowhere with any con­sta­ble at the sta­tion, I left hav­ing wast­ed approx­i­mate­ly 30 min­utes at the said station.

(14) On Tuesday, May 26, I then spoke to the con­cerned cit­i­zen who had called me ear­li­er the after­noon on Saturday, May 23. He told me that Mr Walker had been released from cus­tody that same day.

(B) Issues

(1) Are attor­neys-at-law now required to pro­duce iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards at the Half-Way Tree Police Station, or any oth­er police sta­tion, for that mat­ter, when they attend upon police sta­tions to see clients or poten­tial clients.

(2) How is it that per­sons tak­en into cus­tody at the Half-Way Tree Police Station are not record­ed in your cus­tody book so that attor­neys-at-law can know if their clients and/​or poten­tial clients are in the cus­tody of the State, i.e., a police station?

© Submissions

(1) Attorneys-at-law should not be told they have to leave any area of the police sta­tion unless they pose a threat to the safe­ty of police con­sta­bles and/​or indi­vid­u­als in custody.

(2) Attorneys-at-law should not have to pro­duce any iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards from the General Legal Council to prove they are attor­neys-at-law to any police con­sta­ble when an attor­ney-at-law attends upon a police sta­tion seek­ing infor­ma­tion about cit­i­zens who are in cus­tody of the State/​police sta­tions and who are clients and/​or poten­tial clients of those attorneys-at-law.

(D) Closing Comments

(1) The breach­ing of con­sti­tu­tion­al rights of Jamaican cit­i­zens by mem­bers of the Jamaica Constabulary Force and their dis­re­spect­ful behav­iour towards attor­neys-at-law will not only make your job and those of your con­sta­bles extreme­ly dif­fi­cult, but will under­mine trust and con­fi­dence in the whole admin­is­tra­tion of jus­tice in Jamaica.

- Kent Gammon is an attor­ney-at-law and deputy oppo­si­tion spokesman on justice.

Clearly this guy is a law onto him­self, he could have pro­duced his dri­ver’s licence he did not think the police should demand one.
Secondly he stat­ed quote: Attorneys-at-law should not be told they have to leave any area of the police sta­tion unless they pose a threat to the safe­ty of police con­sta­bles and/​or indi­vid­u­als in custody.
♦ (1) Does Kent Gammon have his name and title imprint­ed on his stu­pid fore­head? If not why should the police believe he is who he say he is.
Guaranteed, had they allowed him the access he demand­ed with­out ID, his let­ter would have been about sup­posed lax in the sys­tem of security .
♦(2)  Attorneys-at-law should not have to pro­duce any iden­ti­fi­ca­tion cards from the General Legal Council to prove they are attor­neys-at-law to any police con­sta­ble when an attor­ney-at-law attends upon a police sta­tion seek­ing infor­ma­tion about cit­i­zens who are in cus­tody of the State/​police sta­tions and who are clients and/​or poten­tial clients of those attorneys-at-law.
What a Jackass , you damn well bet­ter believe you must pro­duce Identification , who the hell do you think you are that every­one should know who you are?
♦ (3) What I find most dis­turb­ing was this state­ment by Kent Phillip Gammon : The con­cerned cit­i­zen gave me a tele­phone num­ber for one Superintendent Bailey and told me that that was where Mr Walker had been tak­en into cus­tody. (9) After call­ing but not get­ting through to the num­ber, Supt Bailey called me on my cel­lu­lar with­in a very short peri­od of time. I told him who I was, he had no clue who I was either, and after explain­ing all in para­graphs (1), (2) and (5) above, I asked him if he could help. He was quite unhelpful.

Gammon’s petu­lant lit­tle out­burst is not about police being a law onto them­selves, by his very own admis­sion, he threw a hissy-fit because none of the cops knew who he was or want­ed to kiss his ass.
Not the Constable, Not The Commanding Officer Fitz Bailey.
Gammon’s let­ter is cer­tain­ly not about any­thing the police did wrong .
It’s all about try­ing to make sure more peo­ple know who he was.
An epic fail .
This guy, by his atti­tude will be a drag on the par­ty . Elections are com­ing up pret­ty soon, the par­ty does not need to have the likes of Kent Phillip Gammon drag­ging it down.
It cer­tain­ly does not need him mak­ing ene­mies with the Police department.
I sug­gest Gammon hum­ble him­self and get his behind off his high horse, if he does­n’t, Andrew Holness should do it for him by show­ing him the door pronto.

Three per cent in the first year and an additional two per cent in the second

year of a new two-year deal.

That is the Government’s offer to pub­lic sec­tor workers.
Police offi­cers, teach­ers nurs­es and others.
Additionally the Jamaica Confederation of Trade Union Workers which rep­re­sents over 40,000 work­ers is hop­ing for meet­ings with Horace Dalley Minister with­out port­fo­lio in the finance Ministry to deal with a sim­i­lar wage offer from the Government.
The Governments offer is par­tic­u­lar­ly appalling to pub­lic sec­tor work­ers as it is sup­posed to end the Government imposed freeze on pub­lic sec­tor wages imposed by the International Monetary Fund.

Meanwhile accord­ing to the Jamaica Observer National Security Minister Bunting is urg­ing the Federation to dis­con­tin­ue the appar­ent protest action that com­menced last night.
The Federation Chairman Raymond Wilson, has pushed back stat­ing that the exec­u­tive is oblig­ed to respect the man­date of the body to take action if their demands for a rea­son­able offer is not met.

Bunting’s declared , “This behav­ior is not appro­pri­ate for an essen­tial ser­vice; it expos­es the pub­lic to unnec­es­sary risk; and may dam­age the pro­fes­sion­al image of the JCF that has seen sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments in recent years.”

Ironically Bunting has no chas­tise­ment for the inep­ti­tude of the Administration which con­tin­ues on a path which clear­ly is not work­ing for the Jamaican people.

The con­tin­u­ance of a pseu­do-social­ist eco­nom­ic agen­da, Genesised in con­tin­ued tax­a­tion of the over bloat­ed pub­lic sec­tor work­force, cou­pled with mas­sive bor­row­ing to fill the ever increas­ing gap between GDP and bud­getary require­ments is a pre­scrip­tion for mas­sive Inflation and what we have seen with the inevitable worth­less­ness of the Nation’s currency.

Jamaica’s con­tin­ued ties to the International Monetary Fund is inim­i­cal to growth and devel­op­ment. It should be clear to the most ardent sup­port­er of the Administration that five year wage freeze on pub­lic sec­tor wages accom­plished noth­ing to which the coun­try could pin it’s hat as worth­while for the pain felt by these most essen­tial workers.
As I have said repeat­ed­ly the International Monetary Fund is not in the busi­ness of nation-build­ing. Whatever for­mu­la the fund laid down for Jamaica was nev­er intend­ed to grow Jamaica’s econ­o­my which would result in a sub­se­quent wean­ing of the coun­try from the fund.
Fund poli­cies and loan require­ments are geared sole­ly to ensur­ing that con­di­tions are met so the fund can get it’s mon­ey back with mas­sive interest.

Jamaica has a deci­sion to make, since there is no marked gain from the 5 years of pain, we have to decide whether con­tin­u­ing with the fund is a fea­si­ble path for our country.
Clearly Government’s wage offer after the wage freeze, is nowhere near enough to com­pen­sate for infla­tion over those five years, much less to raise the stan­dard of liv­ing of the work­ing poor.
This means that pub­lic sec­tor work­ers are slip­ping deep­er and deep­er into pover­ty with each deval­u­a­tion of the currency.

Public sec­tor work­ers can halt this slide but it will not be accom­plished in Jamaica’s polit­i­cal­ly trib­al­ized envi­ron­ment, which ben­e­fits the Government.
A work stop­page of all pub­lic sec­tor work­ers at the same time would have a greater cumu­la­tive effect , rather that the rag-tag approach which they have tak­en over the decades.The Governing par­ty is acute­ly aware of the con­se­quences that would have on it’s abil­i­ty to stay in pow­er with­out call­ing fresh elections.
The peo­ple need new nation­al Elections now so they may chose their own path forward.
The Governing People’s National Party has done a mas­ter­ful job of plac­ing loy­al­ists in posi­tions of pow­er in lit­er­al­ly every area of nation­al life, effec­tive­ly chok­ing off a com­ing togeth­er of forces which would force it to come to the bar­gain­ing table with a respectable and a respect­ful offer for the coun­try’s pub­lic sec­tor workers.

♦ If we can­not com­mand it we will demand it. If you can’t open your eyes as a Government and see the need to give us ade­quate com­pen­sa­tion, then rest assured we may have to open those eyes for you,”.
Sergeant Raymond Wilson Police Federation Chairman who also serves on the National Housing Trust Board, pulled no punch­es in demand­ing a bet­ter wage increase offer than that present­ly on the table.
“I I just want you to stop and think for a while, what is real­ly five per cent after wait­ing for so long? Is that what the Government real­ly wants to offer?”.
Many mem­bers of the rank-and file though in agree­ment that the Government’s 5% offer is gross­ly inad­e­quate, roll their eyes at Wilson Many mem­bers believe Wilson is a blow-hard that gives off a lot of heat and shed no light.
None of the Officers I spoke to have any idea how Wilson plans on mak­ing good on his threats if the Government does not budge. In fact some are quite will­ing to see the back of Wilson who they say has not accom­plished any­thing on their behalf.
Despite their dis­af­fec­tion, Wilson was just recent­ly returned as pres­i­dent of the Federation.

That aside, the real ques­tion is just how much can the Government afford to pay pub­lic sec­tor work­ers in this finan­cial crunch. Conventional wis­dom sug­gest there is not much more on the table if the International Fund has any­thing to do with it, and it does.

So what are Police , Teachers, Nurses and oth­er pub­lic employ­ees to do?
Threats aside, not much.
The Miller Administration knows these work­ers depend on the mea­ger stipend they are paid with­out which their cir­cum­stances would be much more dire.
The International Monetary fund dic­tates to the Administration just what per­cent­age of the bud­get may go to pay­ing pub­lic sec­tor wages.

Many of these pub­lic sec­tor work­ers have time and again gone to the polls to elect and re-elect this PNP par­ty to form the Government despite it’s abysmal track record of han­dling the economy.
The police as oth­er Jamaicans must sub­se­quent­ly take some respon­si­bil­i­ty for the predica­ment in which it find itself.
Police Commissioner Carl Williams is slat­ed to meet with the Federation today, as is cus­tom­ary for decades, Government dis­patch­es the Commissioner to go talk down to the rank and file about it’s lack of abil­i­ty to pay more.
In the end they will not be get­ting much more if any­thing above that 5% offer if at all.
Commissioner Carl Williams on the oth­er hand earns between $8 and $10 mil­lion annually.
A police constable’s basic pay is J$581,701 each year, a stun­ning just over US$5,000 each year.
It will be dif­fi­cult to weed out cor­rup­tion from the Ranks if offi­cers do not see a sub­stan­tial increase in their abil­i­ty to feed their families.

In-art­ful? Yes !
Could her state­ments be con­strued to be Racist. No !
Classicism ? Maybe !
Then again maybe not it depends on where your head is.
Jodi Stewart-Henriques, also called Jinx, is the wife of Reggae singer Sean Paul. Recently Henriques took to social media to crit­i­cize World cham­pi­on sprint­er Usain Bolt>
Quote ‚” Between the bikes … , loud, hor­rid music, par­ties and screams, I hon­est­ly wish he would go back to where he came from. He’s a hor­ri­ble neigh­bour. I can­not wait to move,”.
She went on to say she report­ed the mat­ter to the Police but because of Bolt’s stature no action has been taken .
True to form when one cop was approached about whether Ms. Henriques actu­al­ly made reports to the Constant Spring Police about night nois­es attrib­uted to Usain Bolt, one cop alleged­ly laugh­ing­ly said “No, sah. That’s news to me … . However, I’ll ask my col­leagues. A weh dem a try do to the athlete?” .
Right that’s how pro­fes­sion­al Police offi­cers ascer­tain whether a report was made to the police.

Henriques obvi­ous­ly frus­trat­ed with the lack of action had much more to say about Jamaica’s Ambassador , world renowned sprint­er Usain Bolt. “So unfair and dis­re­spect­ful. I’ve hon­est­ly lost all respect for him. He takes his nasty behav­iour with him every­where … . So many peo­ple love him and he’s such a poor exam­ple of how to behave. I hon­est­ly can’t blame the set of UPT (uptown) that have him as pop­py show in par­ties or on their boat. He’s the ulti­mate par­ty clown,”.
The reac­tion from Jamaicans was vis­cer­al and viscous.
How dare this no name thing of a per­son crit­i­cize our God Usain Bolt.
One woman said her com­ments were aimed at show­ing “how unim­por­tant Jinx is”.
Ironically the total gist of their crit­i­cism of Ms, Henriques was that she was Racist, class-ist and a bigot.
No one both­ered to give cre­dence to her desire to be able to sleep in peace at night>
Another com­ment­ed that she should have no com­ment because Sean Paul her hus­band makes his mon­ey from mak­ing noise at peo­ple’s heads.

Where can Jamaicans now aspire to live where they may enjoy peace and quite and be able to enjoy their lives if they do not want Spanish Town Road in their neighborhoods?
Even as we con­demn what we con­strue to be clas­si­cism and and stretch­ing every bound­ary by alleg­ing racism, I believe we must also give cre­dence to her con­cerns and not sim­ply brush them aside because the sub­ject of her ire is one of our heroes.
If Usain Bolt is guilty of cre­at­ing night nois­es as she alleges, Bolt should be a good neigh­bor and con­form to the stan­dards of the com­mu­ni­ty.
What kind of coun­try is this where peo­ple can­not com­ment on the qual­i­ty of their neighborhood?
The abil­i­ty to run fast does not give him the right to run rough-shod over his neighbors.

It’s not a mat­ter of where you come from , most of us are from rather hum­ble begin­nings.
Its how we learn to adapt to new sur­round­ings.
A house is more than just a place where we live, for most peo­ple their home is the largest invest­ment they will ever make in their life­time.
They have a right to ensure that the actions of oth­ers do not dimin­ish the val­ue of their prop­er­ty.
And that is sep­a­rate from just the qual­i­ty of life con­cerns she allud­ed to.

Night nois­es have been a prob­lem in our coun­try for decades, unfor­tu­nate­ly for some ordi­nary peo­ple who just want to go to sleep they dare not open their mouths for fear of being shout­ed down or mur­dered. Even when I was a cop , report­ing nigh-time noise pol­lu­tion to some police sta­tions and offi­cers were a waste of time.
For the most part if the dance was not a police ven­ture, the police could be found dressed in uni­form at the dance with Heineken in hand, com­plaint be damned.
It took some real Police offi­cers to step in and pull the plug allow­ing work­ing peo­ple to sleep so they could get up and go to work the next day.
This large­ly unchecked mon­stros­i­ty metas­ta­sized to the point peo­ple wish­ing to go to work at 7:am hav­ing gone sleep­less all night, was bur­dened fur­ther by not being able to dri­ve their cars as their streets are blocked-off by mon­strous sound sys­tem speak­er box­es and hun­dreds of scant­i­ly clad gyrat­ing bodies.
No action from the Police.……

Yes she may have been in-art­ful in the way she spoke out in frus­tra­tion. Bigoted and racist I doubt that. What I do know is that when we accuse oth­ers of being of no name recog­ni­tion, even as we accuse them of class-ism , we need to take a good hard look in the mirror.
The prob­lem of night-time noise pol­lu­tion is only one of the many types of pol­lu­tion which has tak­en over Jamaica
Add Auto-repairs on every street cor­ner and a pro­lif­er­a­tion of zinc-shanties in once pris­tine neigh­bor­hoods add to the mad­ness that was once the beau­ti­ful Island of Jamaica.
This issue is big­ger than both Usain Bolt and Jinx.
Jinx’s tirade is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of a lot of peo­ple’s frus­tra­tion over many decades.
People who are not well rest­ed can­not produce.
Kids who stay up at night because of loud music sleep in class. Kids who sleep in class do not do well.
Poor stu­dents makes poor workers.
Is there any won­der our coun­try is mired in the morass of pover­ty and deprivation?
Or is every­thing ire mon tun it up an pas di rum?
Obviously if you are an ordi­nary per­son and not a inter­na­tion­al star you should not open your mouth , no mat­ter what they do to you.
Such Ignorance»»»»