Where Do Politicians Get The Multi-million US$ Accounts From…

If you can’t beat them join them, or bet­ter yet, if you see that a sys­tem can be finan­cial­ly lucra­tive, cash in.
Either one of those mind­sets could define the way the Jamaican crime fight has been viewed by the peo­ple with the pow­er to change the sys­tem.
Who says crime does not pay, it is cer­tain­ly not true in Jamaica?

In a coun­try that is deemed to be 84% cor­rupt by rat­ing agency [Transparency International], it is impor­tant that we under­stand that polit­i­cal cor­rup­tion has served as a shin­ing bea­con for our nation’s youth to look at and decide,” we want our share.“
Most of our peo­ple have sur­ren­dered our sense of out­rage on the altar of hope­less­ness.
We see res­ig­na­tion and apa­thy, we see a sense of sur­ren­der to the sta­tus quo. Have you noticed that the two polit­i­cal par­ties can­not find com­mon ground on any­thing except on things that are bad for the coun­try?
Things like an increase in their pay. INDECOM, no pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al pow­er for the Contractor General, etc.
The peo­ple see the out­rage but they say they can­not do any­thing about it so they accept it is par for the course.

They see the politi­cian who has nev­er had a job out­side of pol­i­tics. Not a sin­gle day of gain­ful employ­ment, yet he/​she has a huge man­sion and a mul­ti-mil­lion US$ bank account.
Where did they get the mon­ey from? We can do the math, we can cal­cu­late how long a per­son has been a mem­ber of par­lia­ment. We know what a mem­ber of par­lia­ment earns. Where have they got­ten the US$ mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar bank account from?
No, mis­ter and miss polit­i­cal toad­ie, we do not envy them their ill-got­ten wealth, maybe you are impressed by that, but we aren’t.
If we are to build a coun­try we must demand hon­esty and integri­ty from those who have stepped for­ward to lead.
It can­not be that we brush these impor­tant ques­tions aside, then expect the very cor­rupt peo­ple we allowed to slide through, to rep­re­sent our best interest.

How many tril­lions have politi­cians in both polit­i­cal par­ties siphoned away from the peo­ple with­out con­se­quence? Yet you glee­ful­ly don your orange and green regalia and cheer them on as they lie to you and you vote them into office to steal from you some more.
They do noth­ing about crime, because a cor­rupt soci­ety that is inun­dat­ed by cor­rup­tion and vio­lence will not be focused enough to pay atten­tion to what they are doing.
They import white over­seers from England sup­pos­ed­ly to help with mod­ern­iz­ing our police depart­ment, play­ing into the stereo­typ­i­cal per­cep­tions that we can­not gov­ern ourselves. 

So we asked [Massa] to come down and show us how to do it. Of course [Massa] came saw and con­quered, but that is what [Massa] have always done right?
He could­n’t, would­n’t, and cer­tain­ly did­n’t do shit about chang­ing the par­a­digm, but he sure dis­re­spect­ed our offi­cers and… aah hell.….why not take a bride and mon­e­tize the car­nage? Why sub­stan­tive­ly change the sit­u­a­tion when it is eas­i­er and more prof­itable to ben­e­fit finan­cial­ly from it?
It made per­fect sense to cash in on the inse­cu­ri­ty and anx­i­ety, why not invest in a secu­ri­ty company?

As a nation, we keep mak­ing the same mis­takes while expect­ing dif­fer­ent out­comes. Our laws are heav­i­ly slant­ed toward the pro­tec­tion of crim­i­nals instead of the pro­tec­tion of the law-abid­ing.
We duti­ful­ly allow for­eign­ers to infil­trate our very law-mak­ing bod­ies until now every bit of leg­is­la­tion that pass­es the par­lia­ment has for­eign influ­ence in every word.
How can a nation claim to be inde­pen­dent when it is inca­pable of gov­ern­ing itself? 

What coun­try in the world would accept any Jamaican inter­fer­ence in its law enforce­ment or leg­isla­tive process?
Why then does Jamaica allow for­eign groups and local groups fund­ed by for­eign coun­tries to influ­ence our crim­i­nal code?
It is so much eas­i­er and more lucra­tive to be a crim­i­nal in Jamaica than it is to be a law-abid­ing cit­i­zen. That is the rea­son no one both­ers to tell the police any­thing.
The fail­ure of lead­er­ship in both par­ties on the issue of crime and cor­rup­tion may not be incom­pe­tence at all.
Dirty mon­ey funds polit­i­cal par­ties and enrich politi­cians.
The deeply entrenched crime fac­tions in the soci­ety have deep con­nec­tions uptown, the polit­i­cal lead­er­ship can­not bite the hand that feeds them.
That’s the bot­tom line, the dead and dying are mere col­lat­er­al damage.

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.
You may sub­scribe to his blogs free of charge, or sub­scribe to his Youtube chan­nel @chatt-a-box, for the lat­est pod­cast all free to you of course.