Twenty Four Mil Per Year Is Zilch When It’s Other People’s Money..

“So Jamaica save $2 million Ja Dollars a month due to smaller cabinet ‚impact zilch”.

I thought that the new gen­er­a­tion of PNP sup­port­ers were smarter than the old crus­taceans which have dom­i­nat­ed that polit­i­cal par­ty for decades.

I even liked Damion Crawford’s insis­tence that he was opposed to “cur­ry goat pol­i­tics” when he argued he was more inter­est­ed in edu­ca­tion and upward mobil­i­ty of the youth.
Notwithstanding the People’s National Party del­e­gates removed Crawford as a can­di­date for the con­stituen­cy of Saint Andrew East Rural. At the time many includ­ing this writer opined that the PNP del­e­gates were out of step with real­i­ty in remov­ing Crawford as their rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Gordon House.

I take this oppor­tu­ni­ty to apol­o­gize to those del­e­gates for sid­ing with Damion Crawford on that occa­sion. Even if Crawford was removed as the rep­re­sen­ta­tive because he would not play cur­ry goat pol­i­tics, Crawford has since demon­strat­ed that he is unwor­thy of my sym­pa­thy or support.
“Coack-roach nu bizniz inna fowl fite”.

I assume the kum­reds in Saint Andrew East Rural know more about their one time Member of Parliament than I do. In all fair­ness this was not the only dumb thing Crawford has done , he once referred to mem­bers of the Opposition par­ty as “dut­ty laborites” . I for­gave Crawford for that bit of indis­cre­tion also, it was nor­mal thing for Kumreds to do , in fact Peter Bunting called laborites “Jankro”, and Bobby Pickersgill asked a mem­ber of a Portmore com­mu­ni­ty whether he was see­ing his peri­od why him chat su? So the young Damion had plen­ty of PNP role mod­els to emulate.

Any Economic Recovery Must Begin With Suffocating The Crime Monster…

Two mil­lion in sav­ings per month from a small­er cab­i­net trans­late into 24 mil­lion per year. At that rate the peo­ple of Jamaica will have real­ized a sav­ings of J$120 mil­lion over a five year term. One hun­dred a twen­ty mil­lion dol­lars from tight­en­ing the reins of Government spend­ing on the cab­i­net alone.

Imagine the sav­ings which can be real­ized when each min­is­ter goes through his/​her min­istry with a scalpel and do an audit to see where waste, dupli­ca­tion , over-runs and oth­er dol­lar-loss are occur­ring as this medi­um has suggested.
Unfortunately Damion Crawford’s tweet though incon­se­quen­tial in the greater scheme of things , reveal a mind­set which has plagued the People’s National Party’s abil­i­ty to be good stew­ards of the pub­lic trust.
Whether the excess stem from huge cab­i­nets, expen­sive SUV’s , lav­ish spend­ing spree in for­eign trav­els by the Prime Minister, or it is in cost-over-runs in the con­tracts process , or as small as a junior par­lia­men­tar­i­an abuse of a gov­ern­ment cell­phone, the mind­set is the same.
Their atti­tude when it comes to the pub­lic’s mon­ey is, lets spend as much of it as possible.

The prob­lem for Crawford and the PNP is that they nev­er grasped the con­cept of fru­gal Governance, .Government has always been a pri­vate kit­ty to be tak­en advan­tage of.
Being in pow­er was a means of lord­ing not lead­ing. Power meant being served not serving.
It will take a suc­cess­ful Holness led term for the nation on a whole to rec­og­nize that Government is there to serve them but not by hand­ing out freebies.
Now lets hope the new Administration can find mil­lions more which may be used to pro­vide health-care, edu­ca­tion and secur­ing the nation.