A member of the Jamaica Labour Party’s communication team, Marlon Morgan, made an interesting recommendation during a press conference held by his party last week. 

Morgan highlighted a potential avenue of corruption at the Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC), acting upon leaked information by way of a conversation that involved Lawrence Rowe, ousted People’s National Party (PNP) candidate for Kingston Central.

The JLP is pushing the point that something is amiss at the corporation, based upon communication between Rowe and the PNP general secretary Dr Dayton Campbell, and Morgan did the unthinkable of suggesting that all municipal corporations controlled by the PNP should be investigated by the various corruption agencies around … Integrity Commission, Auditor General and others.

I had to look keenly if the suggestion was coming from Marlon Morgan, or another in government who shares his surname because it was way off-key.

The glaring omission in Morgan’s call for a probe into PNP-led or dominated corporations is that he forgot to mention the party that he supports because corruption occurs in that zone as well. For such a call to seem legitimate, my friend Marlon, a nice guy, would have to point fingers in his own barn and call for a general probe of local government activities

There is a broader picture though, as maybe Marlon could take time to look at the whole purpose of local government as it exists now, and determine whether or not Jamaica is getting value for money. I think the country is not.

There are around 228 divisions spread across 13 municipalities and the Portmore Municipal Corporation. Have they been serving their intended purpose? How is it that almost every day you hear about illegal activities involving money juggling here, there and everywhere at corporations?

I believe that municipal corporations should be significantly reduced, in terms of their numerical makeup, and more focus placed on getting more members of parliament into the system.

As things stand now, MPs, those in rural and semi-rural constituencies are choked. They are forced to cover geographical areas which leads to an impossibility of serving some.

Subtract seats like Kingston Western, Kingston Central, St Andrew Southern, St Andrew North Eastern, for example, from the mix and you would realise that from a macro perspective, MPs are unable to cover turf adequately.

My take is that the number of MPs should be increased to 93, from the present 63, which would allow for greater representation at the level of the Jamaican Parliament. MPs would have less land space to work with, and even population numbers, which is primarily what the system thrives on now, would be adequately addressed.

Naturally, some of the parish councillors now in the system would be promoted to MP status, and the remainder could operate like linkmen … passing the ball to the MPs on matters relating to domestic issues. 

More can be said on this one but I think that it is worth a serious discussion.

Harry Douglas’s legacy

The former Member of Parliament for St Mary South Eastern, Harry Douglas was quite a colourful man. During the funeral service last Saturday in the seacoast town of Annotto Bay where he served as parish councillor from 1986, before becoming MP in 1989 and stayed in Parliament until 2007, the world was told by speaker after speaker about Douglas’s contribution to St Mary and the nation.

The tributes, led by former prime minister PJ Patterson articulated the man and his work, quite stylishly. 

Chris Brown, the PNP candidate for St Mary South Eastern, and Custos Emeritus of St Mary, the 90-odd-year-old AA ‘Bobby’ Pottinger were outstanding in their presentations. Perhaps the most significant verbal offering on the day though, was one from former president of the PNP, Dr Peter Phillips.

Dr Phillips is a man whom I have a lot of time for. He will go down in my book of Jamaican history as one who was good enough to have led Jamaica, but never cleared the final hurdle.

In the same way that I was disappointed that another man with a Jamaica College blue ink pen, Bruce Golding did not serve longer as prime minister, instead of unleashing the individual now holding the office upon the nation, Dr Phillips would have made a difference had he sat in Jamaica House. But that’s behind us.

His suggestion that the Annotto Bay High School should be renamed in honour of Douglas may be something worth considering, although, in principle, I think that too many symbols and structures are needlessly named after politicians, serving and retired.

I know how hard Harry fought to have that school built at Iterboreale on the outskirts of Annotto Bay, and it may be argued that he, as any other elected official, was being paid to provide the kind of representation that the people warranted. 

But that aggression from the man who was born a mere 321 metres from my spot of birth in Belfield, St Mary, pressed the accelerator with vigour in his quest to spread the gospel according to education. It was he too, during the 1970s while I was a student at Kingston College, who would usually accompany then prime minister Michael Manley, MP for Kingston Central, on his trips to KC, when he was councillor for Rae Town in the then Kingston and St Andrew Corporation. To see him taking a boy aside and in his own fancy language, telling him to stay on the right track, was something.

So, maybe in this case Dr Phillips’s suggestion could be considered, because Harry was respected by many. To see sitting MP on the JLP side, Dr Norman Dunn, in attendance at the funeral said enough about the respect that Harry commanded.

Pain in the great USA

As the days tick off, more and more confusion is clouding the atmosphere in the United States of America, where tough-talking President Donald Trump continues to roll out some of his promised ‘goodies’ and others never mentioned in his speeches leading up to the last presidential election.

Much of the action taken by Trump and his inner circle, which includes billionaire Elon Musk, has resulted in the dislocation and destabilisation of thousands of people already, in the US and the global space. It is not a good look.

I am concerned that Musk, the world’s richest man, whose wealth has grown tremendously since the election, is leading the charge in the world’s richest country, to pull down the world’s poorest people, particularly those outside US shores, in his quest to achieve deficit reduction. The attempt to lock shop on the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is disgraceful, and so many will die if Trump and Musk do not start to wear different shades of glasses.

As far as I remember, Trump was not chanting cuts in foreign aid in the pre-election buildup. Trimming spending internally was being highly touted. Maybe that trimming could start with cutting military spending in his own land, and in Israel.

A fillip for Vaz

The Jamaica Urban Transit Company’s (JUTC) decision to further extend its wheels into rural Jamaica is a welcome move. One of the routes chosen recently was Castleton Gardens in St Mary, with Half-Way Tree in St Andrew as the starting point.

Although it would have been good if the route could have been Half-Way Tree to Annotto Bay, it is a start, and a good move for the people of St Mary.

My understanding is that the minister with responsibility for the transport sector, Daryl Vaz, had a lot to do with the final result. It was a move of class and deserves a sip of champagne.