PNP Subverts Palace Resorts Deal, Huge Loss ForJamaica…

At a time when nations are look­ing to find ways to claw their way out of pover­ty and cre­ate bet­ter oppor­tu­ni­ties for their peo­ple, it is crit­i­cal that those with whom we have giv­en the pow­er to act on our behalf, do so respon­si­bly.
Jamaica has no oil like Guyana now dis­cov­ers it has, nei­ther do we have hi-tech com­pa­nies bring­ing in tens of thou­sands of new jobs.
What we do have is tourism, which is a high­ly com­pet­i­tive indus­try that is behold­en to world­wide even­tu­al­i­ties.
Aluminia is a raw mate­r­i­al that is plen­ti­ful around the world and there­fore insuf­fi­cient for us to depend on.
We all under­stand the vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty of local agri­cul­ture, our food may be more whole­some but we can­not com­pete when it comes to price.
So what we are left with, is our prox­im­i­ty to the Panama Canal and the pos­si­bil­i­ties inher­ent in that proximity.

Jamaica is geo­graph­i­cal­ly ide­al for becom­ing a mas­sive trans-ship­ment hub as a result of its prox­im­i­ty. Whether we find ways to exploit those pos­si­bil­i­ties is total­ly up to Jamaicans. We have the 7^th largest nat­ur­al har­bor in the entire world.
As a trans­ship­ment hub, Jamaica will see a whole indus­try of pos­si­bil­i­ties spring up around that infra­struc­ture, poten­tial­ly cre­at­ing tens of thou­sands of high pay­ing jobs and improv­ing the lives of our pop­u­la­tion, as well as inject­ing valu­able for­eign exchange into the nation­al econ­o­my.
Drug deal­ers and oth­er transna­tion­al crim­i­nals have always under­stood the impor­tance of this geo­graph­i­cal prox­im­i­ty.
Fortunately for Jamaica, we now have a polit­i­cal admin­is­tra­tion that is con­ver­sant and attuned to these logis­ti­cal pos­si­bil­i­ties.
The present admin­is­tra­tion has been for­ward-lean­ing and has begun to cul­ti­vate and nur­ture rela­tion­ships and invest­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. If allowed to devel­op, those rela­tion­ships will present immense eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ties for the nation and the Jamaican people.

Unfortunately for Jamaica, we have a polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion that has mas­tered the art of sub­ver­sion, a tac­tic it learned from the ’70s and has stuck to it as a means of gain­ing and hold­ing polit­i­cal pow­er.
The People’s National Pary has demon­strat­ed that the sole rea­son for its exis­tence in Jamaica is to be in pow­er to enrich its func­tionar­ies.
It is for this rea­son that Jamaicans must under­stand the dam­age the PNP has reck­less­ly done to the Palace Resorts deal nego­ti­at­ed by the Palace sub­sidiary, Puerto Caribe Properties Limited with the UDC, with­out one scin­til­la of evi­dence of wrong­do­ing or cor­rup­tion.
Palace Resorts is a Mexican hotel chain that has the vision to see the future need for infra­struc­ture in a rapid­ly chang­ing world. And so they entered into a deal to build hotel infra­struc­ture.
The deal with the Urban Development Corporation (UDC) was to build in the town of Ocho Rios, a mul­ti-bil­lion-dol­lar hotel prop­er­ty.
As a result of wild and unsub­stan­ti­at­ed asper­sions of cor­rup­tion by the leader of the PNP Peter Phillips call­ing for a foren­sic audit, and oth­er PNP func­tionar­ies includ­ing Lambert Brown, Palace Resorts has scrapped the deal and is demand­ing that the UDC now buy back the land sold to Palace Resorts.

It is absolute­ly shock­ing that a polit­i­cal par­ty could be so inher­ent­ly irre­spon­si­ble and down­right reck­less.
It is per­fect­ly log­i­cal and prop­er for an oppo­si­tion par­ty to be vig­i­lant on behalf of the peo­ple. To ensure trans­paren­cy in Government. To ensure that there is fideli­ty in the process.
It is not the duty of the polit­i­cal par­ty to look to cre­ate chaos in the pub­lic sec­tor to bet­ter its chances at the polls.
It should­n’t be that the polit­i­cal oppo­si­tion gets to cry fire in a crowd­ed the­ater and walk away from the bod­ies left tram­pled in the resul­tant stam­pede.
I call on the leader of the oppo­si­tion Peter Phillips to present to the nation the evi­dence he has of cor­rup­tion in the deal that was nego­ti­at­ed.
I call on Lambert Brown, present to the nation the evi­dence you have of cor­rup­tion that has result­ed in this deal being scut­tled.
I call on for­mer Contractor General Dirk Harrison, to explain how he arrived at the con­clu­sion that the sum that the prop­er­ty was sold for was below mar­ket val­ue.
Not just that it was below mar­ket val­ue, but that if ver­i­fied to be below mar­ket val­ue, it was so done for cor­rupt rea­sons.
In the inter­est of com­mon sense and clar­i­ty, some­times a deal may be done on the front end for less­er val­ue in order to secure the deal. This is easy to under­stand because secur­ing the deal will poten­tial­ly yield incal­cu­la­ble wind­falls on the back end.
I have no infor­ma­tion whether or not my the­o­ry is applic­a­ble to this case, much less whether the prop­er­ty was sold below mar­ket val­ue, to begin with, as prop­er­ty val­ue is usu­al­ly both sub­jec­tive and sub­ject to myr­i­ad issues.
I urge the gov­ern­ment to take this issue to the peo­ple and let it be known what this reck­less action by Phillips and his bunch of regres­sive idiots have cost the country.

Mike Beckles is a for­mer Jamaican police Detective cor­po­ral, busi­ness­man, researcher, and blog­ger. 
He is a black achiev­er hon­oree, and pub­lish­er of the blog chatt​-​a​-box​.com. 
He’s also a con­trib­u­tor to sev­er­al web­sites.
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