What Does Montagues Appointment Say About Administration’s Seriousness About Crime.…

“I should not have the need to remind ministers that they must at all times conduct the affairs of the country with the highest level of integrity,“declared Holness. “But it is important that I repeat it. Corruption will not be tolerated in this Government.”

Andrew Holness Jamaica’s new Prime Minister uttered these words on Monday March 7^th at the King’s house swear­ing in cer­e­mo­ny of his new cabinet.
A moment after mak­ing that state­ment the prime Minister exit­ed the stage and took his seat.
I assume the Prime Minister saved those words for the last under­stand­ing the val­ue of optics as well as the res­o­nance they would have being the last words he uttered before step­ping from the podium.

It is because I fun­da­men­tal­ly believe the Prime Minister under­stand the val­ue and impor­tance of optics that I and many like myself are left scratch­ing our heads about his choice for Minister of National Security.
For years because of the stub­born­ness of the Island’s crime sit­u­a­tion the Ministry Of National Security has been looked at by many as a pun­ish­ment of sorts for those tasked with that port­fo­lio. The new Prime Minister seemed to under­stand that fix­ing the coun­try hinged on seri­ous­ly reduc­ing crime as this medi­um has been focused on for the last four years.

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.(Andrew Holness).

This sec­tion of the Prime Minister’s speech could eas­i­ly have been lift­ed from any one of the many Articles I have writ­ten , detail­ing these very points on which our coun­try must embark if it is to succeed . 
It is with that in mind and Holness’ seem­ing aware­ness by his own words that I am per­plexed about his choice of Robert Montaque for Minister of National Security.

I am not sug­gest­ing that the Minister of National Security must be a lawyer or Police offi­cial but I am unsure of what Robert Montague brings to the table as min­is­ter with respon­si­bil­i­ty for that portfolio?
I am quite will­ing to give Montague a chance to show what he can do, but if the stat­ed goals of the new admin­is­tra­tion are to be real­ized I won­der at the choice of some­one who nec­es­sar­i­ly will need to learn on the job.

Robert Montague is bet­ter known to many of us in Local Government cir­cles through his dynamism and vocal expres­sions as for­mer Mayor of Port Maria and Chairman of the St. Mary Parish Council, since 2003. Mr. Montague has a long his­to­ry of ser­vice, hav­ing been a Councillor for 18 years. During his tenure in the St. Mary Parish Council, Minister Montague also held the chair of the St Mary Environmental Protection Committee, Director of the St. Mary Co-op Credit Union, Distinguished President of the Kiwanis Club of St Mary and Distinguished Lieutenant Governor. Mr. Montague’s professional/​academic back­ground is in agron­o­my. He is also involved in a num­ber of com­pa­nies includ­ing being President of the Suntel Corporation. Mr. Montague’s tran­si­tions into the port­fo­lio of Minister of State in the Office of the Prime Minister with respon­si­bil­i­ty for Local Government affairs, gave him an even more strength­ened voice on the direc­tion and path of local gov­er­nance at the local lev­el in Jamaica.
Robert Montague.

There is not a wealth of infor­ma­tion avail­able on the new Minister of National Security beyond that which appear on the JLP’s web­site. Additionally what we do recall is that there were alle­ga­tions of rape pur­port­ed­ly lev­eled against Montague in 2015 which from all accounts were nev­er substantiated..

According to RJR news 5:23 pm, Tue November 10, 2015 .
Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Chairman, Senator Robert Montague, is deny­ing rape alle­ga­tions appear­ing on social media sites. In a release this morn­ing, Montague said he received a pri­vate com­mu­ni­ca­tion, on August 28 on his Facebook account that con­tained the alle­ga­tions, threats and an attempt to extort mon­ey. He says he report­ed the mat­ter to the police on August 31 and was advised not to reply. Shortly after anoth­er pri­vate mes­sage was received stat­ing that the alle­ga­tions have been passed to the media. On September 1 a blog with some of the alle­ga­tions and fur­ther innu­en­dos was pub­lished and was brought to the atten­tion of the Police. Montague says con­tact was made with the legit­i­mate own­er of the account, from where the mes­sages were sent but the own­er denied involve­ment. Montague says it is unfor­tu­nate that per­sons are seek­ing to use the inci­dent to gain polit­i­cal advan­tage in light of the impend­ing gen­er­al election.He says the Counter Terrorism and Organized Crime Branch and the Major Organized Crime Agency have been informed of his deci­sion to make the mat­ter public.
JLP Chairman denies rape allegations

For the record this medi­um and this writer has no oth­er infor­ma­tion regard­ing this inci­dent which was report­ed by Montague him­self to the Jamaican Press in 2015.
To my knowl­edge there has been no fur­ther devel­op­ment regard­ing this issue to the best of my knowl­edge. I am also con­ver­sant of the harm unsub­stan­ti­at­ed alle­ga­tions such as these can do to an inno­cent per­son­’s life and image.

It will be inter­est­ing to see how the new Minister of National Security deal with the every press­ing issue of crime and those whose task it is to enforce the laws. It is no easy task as the new Administration seeks to change the eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion in the Island it is impor­tant that the rule of law is vig­or­ous­ly pursued.
There will be no real eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment with­out a sus­tained tar­get­ed par­al­lel push to erad­i­cate crime.

Those of us who worked in law enforce­ment and are keen­ly inter­est­ed in the crime sit­u­a­tion on the Island will be scratch­ing our heads as we main­tain a keen vig­i­lance as it regards this admin­is­tra­tion and this par­tic­u­lar assignment.