No To Impotence !.….….…impotence?

The office of con­trac­tor General was cre­at­ed to bring cred­i­bil­i­ty to the awards process of pub­lic con­tracts in Jamaica. This became nec­es­sary because of the high lev­els of cor­rup­tion and malfea­sance that per­me­at­ed that process for decades. Most Jamaicans are acute­ly aware to some degree of the cor­rup­tion with­in the gov­ern­ment con­tract process.

Without re-lit­i­gat­ing the past we move to the present day. The nation’s Parliament draft­ed and enact­ed the Contractor General’s Act. The Office is now head­ed by capa­ble Lawyer Greg Christie. Many who hold polit­i­cal pow­er in the Island nation has very lit­tle use for Greg Christie a man many more see as a breath of fresh air, and much-need­ed integri­ty into the pub­lic sphere.

Greg ChristieOmar Davies

It fol­lows there­fore that it would not be long before the recent­ly elect­ed gov­ern­ment of the coun­try’s far left-of-cen­ter People’s National Party Government would have a prob­lem with Greg Christie. The for­mer Jamaica labor par­ty Government at times butted heads with Mister Christie and his office. how­ev­er the new­ly installed PNP gov­ern­ment if its his­to­ry is any barom­e­ter has nev­er seen a scan­dal and a poten­tial for cor­rup­tion it did not dive into. The PNP gov­ern­ment is formed from a pop­ulist par­ty that thrives on promis­es, cheap give-aways, nepo­tism, crony­ism, cor­rupt prac­tis­es, and abuse of State pow­er. As such they are reward­ed with office for extend­ed peri­ods of time , their last stint last­ing 18 ¹⁄₂ years. During which the coun­try record­ed astro­nom­i­cal esca­la­tion in the mur­der rate , ris­ing to with­in the top three places in the world where one is like­ly to get mur­dered. Registering at its height, an aver­age of 1600 report­ed homi­cides annu­al­ly out of a pop­u­la­tion of 2.7 mil­lion inhabitants.

Omar Davies the for­mer finance min­is­ter presided over the worst finan­cial peri­od in the nation’s history,at a time when most oth­er car­ribean Islands were record­ing pos­i­tive growth in their economies. His per­for­mance was so abysmal the equal­ly incom­pe­tent prime min­is­ter Portia Simpson Miller could not put him back at Finance this time around. Incredibly telling when Portia find some­one unsuit­able for a task.

It is there­fore not sur­pris­ing that Omar Davies now min­is­ter of trans­port, works and hous­ing would be at odds with the work of the con­trac­tor gen­er­al and the works he does. Davie’s min­istry is the one that han­dles the old cook­ie jar, the pot where the tax-pay­ers got their ass­es hand­ed to them through ille­gal and cor­rupt acts with­in the pro­cure­ment process. So in all his wis­dom here’s what Omar Davies does !

THE WHAT:

In a state­ment to Parliament announced that an inde­pen­dent over­sight pan­el has been estab­lished to expand the frame­work for mon­i­tor­ing the award of con­tracts. The body is to be chaired by Professor Gordon Shirley, prin­ci­pal and pro-vice chan­cel­lor of the University of the West Indies, Mona. He is to be joined by busi­ness­man R. Danny Williams, and Everton McDonald, a retired ter­ri­to­ry senior part­ner at PricewaterhouseCoopers.jamaica​glean​er​.com

THE WHY:

Davies announced the estab­lish­ment of the pan­el while reveal­ing that Cabinet has giv­en approval for the con­tin­u­a­tion of three projects — the com­ple­tion of the north-south link of Highway 2000; the Gordon Cay Container Transhipment hub, and the Fort Augusta Container ter­mi­nal. The OCG, head­ed by Greg Christie, had expressed it was not in agree­ment with the direct nego­ti­a­tions with investors in rela­tion to these three projects. The office had said the projects should be sub­ject­ed to com­pet­i­tive ten­der.jamaica​glean​er​.com

THE WHO:

Yesterday, Opposition Leader Andrew Holness and North Central Clarendon Member of Parliament Pearnel Charles said they were uncom­fort­able with the rea­son for which the pan­el has been estab­lished. Holness ques­tioned whether Davies was seek­ing to replace the OCG with the pan­el.jamaica​glean​er​.com

Here’s the thing , there is noth­ing wrong with this pan­el of Jamaicans, after all in Jamaica one only has to go to col­lege and they are giv­en God sta­tus, so I have no evi­dence one way or the oth­er as to the char­ac­ter of these peo­ple, But they are not need­ed. I total­ly get how this admin­is­tra­tion and in par­tic­u­lar this min­is­ter could have a prob­lem with the integri­ty process that is enshrined in the OCG, after all they are used to mak­ing deci­sions as politi­cians with­out over­sight or any­one dar­ing to ques­tion them.

THE RANT:

“We do not accept impo­tence as an option,” he said.“This admin­is­tra­tion, this Parliament, is very much aware of the knife’s edge in terms of the tim­ing and we would sug­gest that it is not appar­ent that this under­stand­ing of the fact that investors are not going to hang around in per­pe­tu­ity, hop­ing that you may come to a deci­sion,” Davies said. He added: “What we are seek­ing to do is to do the right thing and to ensure that the pub­lic is assured that there are oth­er per­sons … who have accessed what we are doing.” He said: “It can­not be that 63 mem­bers are all so tied togeth­er in a nar­row, focused attempt to deceive the peo­ple and one office is the only cor­rect one.jamaica​glean​er​.com

Clearly mis­ter Davies must have been liv­ing in a dis­tant uni­verse, or he choses to be obliv­i­ous to the fact that peo­ple trust the OCG far more than they do any sin­gle par­lia­men­tar­i­an, or all of them com­bined. Clearly the esteemed min­is­ter is suf­fer­ing from an abun­dance of over con­fi­dence in his and his col­leagues impor­tance and or pop­u­lar­i­ty. I know the min­is­ter finds obey­ing the law a nui­sance, but the law is the law mis­ter Davies, you are not allowed to abro­gate the law or usurp the duly con­sti­tut­ed OCG in your expressed hur­ry to take advan­tage of opportunities.

I sug­gest you get used to shar­ing pow­er, I under­stand what a both­er it must be for you and your col­leagues to obey laws, after all you peo­ple were nev­er held to answer for any­thing. During your last go around you had carte-blanch to do what­ev­er you want­ed and look at the results.

A new day is dawning.

I love it.