Details of the lease agreement were unavailable at press time.  But chairman Wayne Chen promised to check and provide details to the Sunday Herald.  Chen also said no contracts were awarded to the company under his watch.

“No contracts have been awarded by the UDC to Incomparable Limited since I became chairman.  However, I should note that Incomparable Limited holds a lease for a quarry in St. Catherine on lands owned by the UDC that was awarded before I joined the board,” Chen said in response to questions from the Sunday Herald.

The lease agreement is in addition to over $100 million in contracts to the company by the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) government since taking over local and central governments between 2002 and 2007.

There have been suggestions over the past weeks that the revocation of Chen’s US visa by the US authorities could perhaps be linked to contracts awarded to Incomparable Limited by the state agency, chaired by Chen.

Chen in response to this suggestion stated, “I have no information to suggest any such connection.”

Party leader Prime Minister Bruce Golding has defended his government’s recalcitrance in extraditing Coke to the US on the grounds that part of the evidence was gathered illegally.

Americans frustrated

Until recently, the United States was pleased with the cooperation it was getting from Jamaica over the extradition of persons accused of serious crimes, reported the Economist.  In a recently published article the Economist pointed out that “the Jamaican authorities were responding promptly to requests and, last year, sent 15 suspects to the United States.

But the case of Christopher “Dudus” Coke seems to be different.”

According to the article, “The American authorities have become frustrated at what they see as foot-dragging by Jamaica’s government over their request last August for the extradition of a man they say is the leader of an “international criminal organisation.”

A “Gang Threat Assessment Survey” conducted by the Jamaican government last year, reckoned there were 268 criminal groups in Jamaica, earning cash from extortion, selling cannabis, transporting cocaine, contract killings, prostitution and international cybercrime.  Many of them are merely small-time thugs.

But the United States Justice Department has put Coke on its “world’s most dangerous” list, accusing him of directing drug deals as far away as New York.

Home patch

According the Economist article, Coke’s home patch is Tivoli Gardens, a tough inner-city garrison close to the waterfront.  It is the core of the Kingston Western parliamentary seat, held since 2005 by the prime minister, Bruce Golding, and for 43 years before that by Eddie Seaga, his predecessor as leader of the JLP.

Two of Coke’s brothers and a sister have been shot dead over the years, either by gangland killers or in shoot-outs with police.  His father, Lester Coke, was a leader of the infamous Shower Posse — the gang, which, according to the American indictment, his son now runs.  It was widely blamed in the 1980s for more than 1,000 murders in Jamaica and America.

Coke senior died in a mysterious fire in his prison cell in 1992, while awaiting extradition to America on drugs and murder charges.  It was the day of the funeral for another son, Mark, who had been shot dead three weeks earlier.  Mr. Seaga, then opposition leader, marched alongside party colleagues in the funeral cortège describing the deceased as a protector, the Economist article stated.

Reports are that Evans walked from the courthouse into a waiting motorcar, which sped off in the mid afternoon traffic.  What sources said was a well-planned exercise was executed in clockwork style, as Evans was taken downtown Kingston in the vicinity of the craft market from where he boarded a Go Fast boat.  Evans was tracked to Bimini in Bahamas where he was said to be hiding.

Head of the police inspectorate branch Deputy Commissioner Charles Scarlett confirmed that his branch was probing a possible case of criminal negligence or breaches of the JCF regulations.  DCP Scarlett and his team would now have to find answers to several questions.

The Sunday Herald has also learnt that 12 policeman have been transferred from the Half-Way Tree police station following the incident.

Based on existing rules, police personnel escorting Evans who was held at the Horizon detention centre to court are supposed to be made aware of his status and the relevant paperwork would have been taken with him to court.  Irrespective of the outcome of the case before the court, proper procedure indicates that he should have been taken back to the Half-Way Tree police lockup for safe keeping until he was transferred back to Horizon Detention Centre.  But sources say his police escort simply led him outside the courthouse and released him.

Evans, who was facing charges for possession of over 800 pounds of ganja, was exonerated when he appeared in the Half-Way Tree Criminal Court over a week ago.

However, Evans was wanted in the United States for alleged drug smuggling, after he was linked to a 1998 seizure of a large quantity of marijuana and cocaine found on an Air Jamaica flight at Fort Lauderdale airport.  He was subsequently indicted by a Grand jury in 2003 and the Jamaican Government duly advised.

Selling fingerprints

Meanwhile, Assistant Commissioner Justin Felice confirmed that an ongoing investigations into allegations involving the selling of fingerprints to a Montego Bay business was ongoing.  It is estimated that the state might have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in the scam via the illegal sale of fingerprints.

Several senior officers are under the microscope.  Among the suspects are gazetted officers who are labeled as corrupt based on intelligence gathered on their activities.  One suspect, who sources say is filthy rich, resides in central Jamaica and another in upper St Andrew.

According to reports from US Federal agencies, many accused Jamaicans at their trials and sentencing in Florida, mention the names of several Jamaican police officers as their cohorts in criminal activities.

Many years ago, I attended an international conference.  At the end of the first day’s session, I was approached by the delegate from the Ukraine who was full of compliments about the way Jamaica takes care of its children.

“Have you been to Jamaica?” I asked, surprised at her comments.  “No” she replied, “…but you have an ambassador for children, AN AMBASSADOR FOR CHILDREN!” she said with excitement.  Then she added, “I know of no other country that takes the welfare of their children so seriously.”  I busied myself refreshing her drink. The nation is well and truly angry about Armadale.  Some think the top brass should be fired.  Others think they should not be fired.  My fear is they will be replaced and then it will be business as usual.  For the horrible conditions and the sadistic abuse have been going on for years and continue.  Many people have known this for many years and have said nothing.

Almost 200 years ago, the horrible conditions in the workhouses in Britain caused Charles Dickens to write the book Oliver Twist.  But even then, the children did not have to use their hands to eat and were not required to defecate on newspapers in cramped conditions and keep it till the next day. Separated from society in a ‘closed’ environment, children are desperately vulnerable.  Things have already gone badly wrong in their homes for them to end up in institutions.  These places should be welcoming, friendly homes away from home where their fractured lives can begin to heal.

This is a job for specially trained personnel.  What has been done to them is tantamount to a butcher being handed a dull axe and told to perform delicate surgery. Over the past two years, I have made five attempts to get these children’s agencies to intervene when I have observed children being the subject of continuing and excruciating abuse.  They have never acted.  So our children are damned if they are at home and damned if they at ‘Armadale’.

Many of the Artful Dodgers hide behind this ‘we had limited resources’ excuse.  We know that.  There will never be adequate resources for this purpose because children cannot vote!  Kindness, caring and compassion do not require one cent to be added to the budget.  These are what these poor wretched souls hunger and thirst after – more than food.  The problem I have is not just that these monsters always seem to end up around our children.  It is that this is the terrible way all of us seem to treat each other.  It is the same self-loathing, which causes half of us to use harsh chemicals to lighten our skin and the other half to explore subtler means of achieving the same objective that manifests itself in the cruelty perpetrated on these children.  For cruelty is a symptom, a sign that something is wrong spiritually and emotionally in a person.

The effect of cruelty on a child can have profound consequences in their adult lives.  I wonder how many of the cold killers we have terrorizing our country honed their mental skills in these ‘homes’.

The people are in no mood to trust the word of anyone in authority.  Not again.  I would therefore ask that the following be considered when remedial action is contemplated:
1.  Representatives of NGO’s should be given authority to make unscheduled visits — day or night — and be free to inspect, interview and advise wards.
2.   Strengthen the legislative framework to send a clear message to abusive or neglectful parents that Government is serious about the protection of children.  Mothers cannot father children and we must find and expose the ‘wuklis puppas’ — some of whom hold prominent positions in society.
3.  Check the qualifications of persons currently employed at these homes to ensure that they are not there simply because they have a friend in some influential position.

We need to understand that Armadale was inevitable because we, the people, did nothing about Agana (Barrett).

Questions concerning child custody are always troubling courts in Jamaica and the United States.  The Uniform Child is a state law that was approved in 1997 by the National Conference of Commission of Uniform State Laws.  The UCCJEA governs state courts jurisdiction and the United States to make and modify child custody determinations.  Child custody determinations include custody and visitation orders.  The UCCJEA requires state courts in the United States to enforce valid child custody, visitation, and determinations made by sister state courts.

The UCCJEA conforms jurisdictional standards of the Federal Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act to ensure interstate enforceability of order.  Sometimes children born in the United States, with a valid constitutional claim to Jamaican nationality are moved to Jamaica during, before, or after custody battles.  These issues are governed by The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction and ICARA, which is the Federal Status in the United States which implements the Hague Convention.

The subject matter of The Hague Convention that deals with the international wrongful removal and protection of children.  The first Hague Convention establishes administrative and judicial mechanisms to expedite the return of children to their country of habitual residence: particularly children who have been abducted and wrongfully retained across international borders.

Under The Hague Convention, children who are wrongfully removed from or retained in a contracting states are subject to prompt return.  The UCCJEA specifically provides for the informant of The Hague Convention return orders and authorizes public officials to locate and secure the return of children in Hague Convention cases.

David P. Rowe is a Professor of Law at the University of Miami, School of Law.

More voices including some from among Jamaica’s ruling class are beseeching the Government to allow the Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke extradition request to be adjudicated by the Jamaican courts, in keeping with our Constitution and our Treaty obligations.  We are encouraged by this positive sign, but must warn of what we fear is the stubborn resistance of Prime Minister Bruce Golding and his administration to hand over the fate of the ranking JLP don to the country’s judicial process.

Proof of their intransigence was made unmistakably clear not only in the fact that the matter was brought before both the Upper and Lower Houses of Parliament, but also in the belligerence of the justification put forward for rejecting the US’s request.

Even as we urge every responsible Jamaican to make their voice be heard on a matter that is crucial to our country’s reputation and to good relations with partners without whose cooperation the fight against crime will be stalled, we need to understand the specific nature of the alleged criminal activity in which Mr. Coke is accused of being engaged.  We believe that the Jamaican citizenry are entitled to answers to a number of pertinent questions that would allow them to more fully understand the gravity of this case.

To begin, what exactly are the contents of the wiretap on which the American authorities have based the charges against Mr. Coke?  And who were the other people in the conversations?  We are told that those charges include drug trafficking and gunrunning, but only a few specifics have so far been mentioned publicly, and only vaguely.  Since one individual on his own could not have conducted these alleged activities, who other than Mr. Coke would the contents of the wiretap have an impact on?

Jamaica has been engulfed in the guns-for-drugs trade that has propelled us to the top spot among crime-infested countries.  Until recently our politicians have bemoaned how for too long our governments have been unable to get the US authorities to clamp down on gun-running from that country.  How, therefore, could any Jamaican government stand in the way of allegations about gun-running to the country being heard in our courts?  Shouldn’t we demand to know on whose behalf the alleged gunrunning was perpetrated?  Because, were the allegations to be true, anyone involved would be a public enemy.

We note that the Prime Minister spoke authoritatively in Parliament about the wire-tapping and appeared to judge the legality of the evidence gathering, as more important than the nature of the evidence that has been put forward.  Nonetheless, we reiterate our view that judgement on this issue properly resides within the judiciary and not with the Executive.  If the Prime Minister is privy to such evidence, as it appears he is, then he ought to be able to answer the questions we have raised.  He also has the responsibility to assure us that the evidence does not portend a threat to public safety.

Except for the views appearing above, articles in this newspaper do not necessarily represent the opinion of the newspaper.

The cry has become just too insistent.  The reported numbers of suspect killings by the police since the beginning of the year too startling to be ignored any longer.  Every parliamentarian wants to support the police in the proper execution of their duty to protect the society, but each of us faces the compelling instances of murders by the police as well as other instances of abuse of our constituents.  So this week, we passed the law that ought to begin to change this shameful culture.

It was an election promise made by the Government.  The Independent Commission to investigate abuse by the security forces will not end abuse by some of their members.  But it would give the citizens much greater redress than has existed up to now.  The Commission will have independence from the police force, control of crime scenes and the obligation to report on and conclude investigations in reasonable time.  This piece of legislation is a necessary but insufficient step towards a better balance and a culture of respect between the citizenry and the security forces.  I believe it is good law.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Prime Minister closed the debate after reporting that most of the suggestions made by members the previous week were incorporated in the Bill.  There was some contention during the committee stage as to the chain of command at crime scenes.  This was largely because the text of the proposed amendments was not available.  The House requires the technology to be able to circulate electronically, real-time versions of the texts with which we are dealing.

There was a good feeling when the Bill was read a third time near five on Tuesday evening.  Both sides had collaborated on a significant measure that can curb a serious abuse of state power.  It demonstrates the potential of the parliament when it gets beyond partisan bickering.

Private motions

Sharon Hay-Webster has been championing the rights of beleaguered homeowners at Caribbean Terrace near Harbour View ever since that community was severely impacted by storm surge.  Her motion used a localized event to point to the general thickness and inadequacy of the state’s planning and response capabilities.  Peter Phillips led a similarly useful discussion at Wednesday’s sitting on the commercialization of residential areas and the incapacity of existing law to curb the problem.  Then there was Donald Rhodd’s well-researched but too lengthy plea for attention to climate change and disaster preparedness in his north-eastern parish.

All these motions had been on the Order Paper for more than a year and were heard by a minority of members in the Chamber.  The fact that several speakers contributed to each debate indicates the importance of the topics.  Each resolution was referred to one of the Standing Committees for action and referral to Cabinet for execution.  The real question is how quickly and effectively would they be dealt with in those places. Parliament needs to seriously review its own effectiveness.  Our procedures and capacity to react do not match the urgency of our own resolve — let alone the public need.

Public Administration  Committee

Nowhere was this incapacity more evident than in the proceedings of the Appropriations and Public Administration Committee on Wednesday.  The new Fiscal Responsibility legislation prescribes the crucial engagement of this committee to monitor all public expenditure and to recommend to the House any supplementary budgets.  Dr. Hughes, the Financial Secretary, appeared before us to begin to establish operational guidelines for all this to happen.

As it now functions, the committee does not have the time or the technical support to do its expanded job.  The law now requires a full-time Ways and Means Committee of the House.      The budget would have to be recast to accommodate a research relationship with our universities and the assignment of adequate staff.  The requirements have not yet been properly thought out.  The new demands on the time of the members of this committee ought to be compensated.  This is a situation unlike anything the Parliament has crafted in its history, and there is very little time to become effective.

We learned from Dr. Hughes that yet another set of supplementary estimates would be tabled next week to clear the way for the budget presentation the following week.  It will hardly be possible for the Appropriations Committee to even look at this before it is brought to the full House.  This means that the nation’s legislature will begin a new era of fiscal oversight and responsibility by breaching its own recently established rules.

The challenge of requiring the more than one hundred agencies and public bodies to provide action plans and budgets for approval has not been fully grasped.

The Financial Secretary acknowledged that we are far from achieving this.  My position is that these institutions ought not to continue spending until they have submitted their plans and completed their reports.  But how purposeful will that be if the body to review them is not up to the task?

And yet there is no alternative.  If the Parliament misses the occasion to effectively oversee the expenditure of the public’s tax and borrowed dollar, there will be no end to the accumulation of deficits and over-runs. which are all too soon added to the bill of the citizens of Central Kingston and elsewhere.

Neither government nor opposition seems to comprehend the extent of the task our creditors now insist we carry out.  The Standing Orders Committee of the House ought to be meeting for the rest of this month to plan for this new order of business.

Electoral boundaries

Less than two-thirds of the members bothered to attend the second sitting of the House last week.  Mr. Samuda took his fair measure of teasing as the minister in charge of government while the Prime Minister and his deputy are abroad.  Samuda made sure to take the prime ministerial seat and earned himself the title of “One Day Busha” from some of his colleagues.

The main item of business was the approval of the new electoral boundaries submitted by the Electoral Commission.  There is a convention that the House approves and does not question the proposals of the commission.  In effect, this places the commission in a position of authority superior to Parliament in respect of fundamental matters to do with our democracy.  This should not be acceptable.  It is born out of the tragic partisanship of a generation ago when in fear of chaos and endless division Parliament virtually ceded this arena of its constitutional responsibility.  It has worked well and should be allowed to continue but not without question.

This was the point I understood Mr. Warmington of St. Catherine to be making.  Why ask the political parties to work out rational and apparently non-discriminatory boundaries for St. Catherine and then reject their recommendations and substitute prescriptions that do not appear sensible, he asked.

He got no answer except that the commission’s report was to be accepted without explanation.  It is understandable that he should have protested by walking out.  Many members agreed with him but were afraid to express their support.

My suggestion that the Electoral Commission be asked to explain their rationale before we adopted their report, fell on deaf ears.

The good news is that the commission’s report on campaign financing is nearly complete.

Ronnie Thwaites is an attorney at law and Member of Parliament for Central Kingston.

The dismissal and transfers of senior public servants, allegedly as a response to the Armadale Report produced by Mr. Justice Patrick Harrison, if that were all that were done would simply be to add one form of cruelty to another.  The suggestion that the transfer and demotion of Major Richard Reece from his post as permanent secretary in the Ministry of National Security to the post of director general of the Ministry of Local Government in the Office of the Prime Minister has followed the resignation of Mrs. Allison Anderson McLean as executive director of the Child Development Agency (CDA).

There is no clear acknowledgement that the resignation and transfer are the Government’s response to the Report.  However, there is a reasonable inference that connects them.  The four police personnel interdicted were present on the fateful evening of May 22, 2009 in which five girls who were wards of Armadale perished when a tear gas canister, hurled in the dorm 20 feet by 12 feet in which 20 girls had been under locked down for more than two weeks, ignited and set the dorm ablaze, according to the report.  Five wards of the state perished in that fire.

The Child Care and Protection Act, which is the law under which the girls were detained as wards of the state, does not contemplate that any of them should be isolated for the maximum 72 hours that Correctional Service regulations currently allow.  These young girls were detained for more than two weeks at the time of the fire.  This must have been a form of torture.  The Armadale report found that the breaches were systemic and the breaches were the result of the cruelty and insensitivity and inhumanity of particular persons.

Inter alia it says: ‘My findings based on the evidence reveal a wide range of shortcomings.  There were breaches of duty and administrative errors by the Correctional Services Department, indifferent and insensitive actions by public officials, troubled and unruly girls further traumatized by some uncaring adults, unjust treatment of girls, unlawful and impulsive action by police officers and the absence of any structured safety system in an emergency at Armadale.  Those among others, combined with the negligent action of public officials made inevitable the tragedy of Armadale on the night of May 22 2009.’

Horrendous tragedy

Even the careful choice of words and the candid assessment by Mr. Justice Harrison do not adequately convey the scar on the skin of our humanity, as Jamaicans that was Armadale May 22, 2009.  It is truly a horrendous tragedy.  More persons have died in a single event and more even at the hand of the state.  None however combined the Jamaican cruelty with the inept neglect and inhumanity of many para-statal actors on the Jamaican landscape the way Armadale has.

How does one explain how firefighters come on the scene of the fire and there are 20 young girls trapped in the blaze, but they do not make as their first action to axe down the door.  It took the fire brigade from 8:53 when they were first called to 9:15 — all of 22 minutes to get there and then they found other priorities, which trumped saving the lives of the 20 young girls.  How does one explain that though there had been previous fires at the institution the state did not find it necessary to replenish the exhausted fire extinguishers?

Regulations allow for a maximum isolation (lock down) period of 72 hours (three days), these girls were locked down for more than two weeks at the time of the fire.  They were confined in a room measuring 240 sq ft. for 23 hours per day, with inadequate furniture and no activity.  They were restricted to using the bathroom for one hour per day.  The water was turned off in the room and they were given individual buckets kept in this room, in which to put their human bodily waste.  At least the animals in Noah’s Ark had the flood as their excuse; what was the excuse at Armadale?     Why did neither the leadership of Correctional Services nor the Ministry of National Security including the minister find it necessary to act?

It was cruelty; we have made a national pastime of being cruel to each other.  This was our brand of the holocaust.  The numbers were not there but the intention, inhumanity and indifference were there in abundance.  German theologians who review their history of the mistreatment and incineration of Jews have wrestled with the question of silence.  Why, they asked themselves, did good people including religious people not speak up?  Why did they not protest and condemn this atrocity?  We have our answer in Jamaica; they say apathy is the world’s problem and nobody cares.  In seeking to account for the behaviour of the unruly girls, Mr. Harrison leaves this paragraph:

‘This was the injustice of collective punishment in operation.  Some of the girls were compliant and meekly resigned themselves to their fate, for a period in excess of a year.  Others were not so compliant and did not.  The latter group is deserving of some degree of understanding.  There is a level below which no human being should be persistently forced and expected to exist.  The girls in the office dormitory at Armadale on May 22, 2009 had been degraded to that level.’

Respond to issues

It is the watch of the Golding administration to respond.  This is not world financial recession, this is not IMF; this is about the Jamaican government and the Jamaican people.  This is not the problem we wish away.  These are issues in response to which public policy takes shape.  We must insist and our government leads us along that path, that such incidents, as the tragedy at Armadale are never repeated.  The dribbling out of actions and consequences without clarification and explanation has become characteristic of the political administration.

The Golding administration has shown itself to lack openness, a sense of process and thoroughness.  The habit of scapegoating individual public officials and singling them out for exemplary humiliation will not do this time around.  A far more thorough approach to protect the rights of our children and change the ethos of care and protection afforded to wards of the state is nothing less than what is required.

Blame cannot be made to lie at the feet of Government alone.  The self-righteous bleating of certain sections of the rights community is far from what is appropriate.  There are those that have formed the opinion that there is an element of obsequiousness in their protestations.  It is clear that internationally, there is a lot of project funding available for matters relating to the rights and welfare of children.  It would not be difficult to take copies of the banner headlines of newspapers that chronicle the mistreatment of our children and take these stories to agencies in Europe and get them to fund our efforts in responding ostensible to the needs of children, like the girls of Armadale.

Often, when such funds are raised they go to prop up lifestyles of consultants and attorneys and advocates, but very little filters down to the children.  It is a cruel to seek to profit from the misery of our children and wards of the state, as it is to lock them down into a 20 x 12 room for 23 hours per day and hurl tear gas canisters into a room with 20 children with no exit.

The most profound challenge of all is to reverse the ethos of cruelty.  Bob Marley says, “Man to man is so unjust, you don’t know who to trust.”  It seems to me there is first and foremost an issue of training.  There is no doubt that those who are called upon to care for our children, many of whom are troubled in the public service are in need of specialized training.  It is one of the areas to which the institution of which I am a part, has directed its intellectual and professional resources.  It seems to me that at a minimum, we need to include training in child rights and in compassion.  More need to be said about this and more space should be devoted to it.

The other is supervision and auditing of timely reports.  Thirdly, there is a need for a more organized role of churches and NGOs properly supervised, regulated and audited in agency care.  This is part of the reason I regret to see Allison Anderson McLean leave the CDA, because she had brought a discipline of mind and an intellectual rigor to the leadership, and I would have expected it to have been her next step.  Armadale is a plague on all our houses.  We must do something about it.

With recent happenings in Jamaica I find myself returning to childhood experiences in an attempt to run for cover and protection.

Many mornings while I walk or do my devotion I reflect on what I used to do as a young child in the hills of Clarendon.  I seem to be running for refuge all too frequently these days.  Running from corruption; running from conflict; running from leaders who come up short; running from crime and violence.  I find my mind meandering to things that were commonplace back then.  For example, when adults wanted to talk ‘big people business’, this could be a likely scenario.  They would dispatch us to do some chore, that we had either just done or it wasn’t time for, legitimate though it may be.

‘Errol and Fae run go over common (akin to a pasture) si if di goat dem tangle (entangled) up roun di guava tree.’  We had to leave without a murmur.  We couldn’t say that we had ‘moved’ (changed their position) them only minutes before.  Although reluctant of heart we left with alacrity.  Confession: sometimes when dem tink wi gaan a bush or gaan move di goat dem wi did just crawl into the cellar or tiptoe to the house corner and get our bit of the district gossip.  That was quite rare though because should we be caught we ‘bottom would pay for roas’ and bwile’.  That means we would get a proper beating.  As a much younger child that comment would be, ‘Don’t let me lace yuh bottom’.

Let me tell you what my creative cousin Errol did one day.  My mother used to have guava switches/whips readymade for administering the ‘licking’.  Well, my innovative cousin knowing full well that it was just a matter of time before we were administered to, decided to ‘ring the whip’.  He took a knife and circled the whip at regular intervals by cutting fairly deeply into the skin.  It would not be immediately discernable to an angry person.  So, true to form, we got into trouble.I can’t recall who was dispatched to get the whip but it was Errol who got the first taste.  Well on impact with skin the whip disintegrated into several 4—6-inch pieces.

He had the whole thing planned.  Being younger I had only prepared for this moment but not beyond.  Now that there was no more whip or beating taking place and no more Errol — he had taken off at a speed that would have seriously challenged Donald Quarrie (1976 Olympic Gold Medallist), I was left standing facing an enraged mother.

Shelly-Ann Fraser (100-metre Beijing Olympic gold medallist) would have had nothing over me when I made a dash for the front yard and levitated up a very tall ackee tree.  As my spindly legs disappeared around the corner of the house, on the wind I heard, ‘When I hold you, yuh going to si which part wata walk go a pumkin belly’.  I saw it.  But that’s my secret.

My grandmother and mother coined phrases, words, complete vocabularies.  For instance when my grandmother — who was very aware of the importance of sustaining the environment — thought she heard someone felling trees or chopping wood over at the woodland without permission.  In order to hear exactly where in the woodland the incident was happening, she would announce firmly but softly, ‘ Tantuddy’.

I believe literally it meant be steady, don’t move, be still.  But it became to mean be quiet.  If one is to be quiet then clearly you have to be still, in and out.

Then think of the time my mother dubbed a member of the district who was not deemed too bright a ‘Fantefeck’.  I know what it means but I can’t explain it.  Some things are just like that.  It is clear that he also knew the meaning because although he was illiterate he got ‘hignarant’ when she called him so to his face.

He was the same one who came up with the perfect remedy for me after I developed asthma between eight and nine years old.  Everyone in the district was truly concerned for Miss Mae daughter.  (By the way, being an asthmatic was my passport to Kingston).

So he arrived in the yard one day complete with machete.  Not unusual at all.  Everybody travelled with a machete, even children.  And we were not violent; we were not planning to murder anyone.  It was just the technology of the time.  We used machetes to cut bananas, dig yam hill, cut wiss (wild vines) and chop wood for fire.  Anyway back to the asthma.

Here is the conversation:

Fantefeck: Miss Mae ef yuh want Fae fi get rid a di asthama all yuh need fi do is mek ‘ar stand up (a)’gainst a young tree; use a sharp machete and chop off the top of the tree (all the time demonstrating animatedly how it is to be done) and when she grow pass di tree she will grow out di asthma’.

My mother: (Eyes formed into narrow slits with a piercing focus).  Yes Maas…, so what happen when di machete slip? (meaning when it is my head and not the tree that is chopped).  (A look of, you tink I mad like you) ‘Get di hell ot of mi yaad.’

Were he a child she would have said, ‘If a grab yuh a whistle’ or ‘If a hold you today yuh go up a gum tree.’

Although many of these phrases were not unique to my home some I have heard nowhere else.  I must tell you though that in her eyes the ‘Fantefeck’ population has grown particularly in 21st century Jamaica where the ‘Fantefecks’ are not illiterate, nor are they contained in rural Jamaica, to the contrary.

My column is published every other week, so back with you on March 28, 2010 DV. Walk good!

Fae Ellington is a broadcast journalist, lecturer in radio and a communication consultant.  Your views and comments are welcome. Send them to fae@mail.infochan.com

Some big players including the Bank of Jamaica that bought into the Jamaica Debt Exchange (JDX) programme are seeing red ink spilling on their bottom line.  Reports from the financial sector indicate that the Jamaican economy could experience major fallout, as the programme begins taking effect.

Several public and private sector entities are now reporting significant fallout in their revenue flows and profits, while the central bank has racked up almost $4 billion in losses two months after the JDX programme was implemented.

The bank’s profits stood at $7 billion last November.  The losses and the reduction in the profits of other public sector bodies, which would have to be absorbed by the government, could result in the net gains to the budget from the JDX falling way below the $30 billion being projected by Finance and Public Service Minister Audley Shaw.

The losses could affect the country’s ability to meet the target to keep the losses of public sector entities at $29 billion or 2.9 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) as at the end of March this year.  GDP is the total market value of all final goods and services produced in the economy, during a given quarter, six-month period or a year.

The negative effects of the JDX are being felt, although many government officials and private sector executives are saying that it is still early days yet.  The JDX has resulted in a lowering of the interest rates and a lengthening of the time, which the government intends to take to repay some $701 billion in domestic debt, which amounts to about 65.5 per cent of GDP.

The authorities however, did not take into consideration the negative impact of the JDX on the public sector and pension funds, although it negotiated a US$950 million bailout fund for members of the financial sector.

Data presented in the central bank’s balance sheet indicated that it chalked up almost $4 billion in losses during the year to date up to February 24, because of the stable exchange rate and the impact of the JDX.

The bank’s profits fall when the exchange rate is stable because it does not benefit from the increase in the Jamaican dollar value of its foreign assets when there is a devaluation of the local currency, relative to its US counterpart.  The value of the bank’s foreign assets jumped to $202.7 billion, as at February 24, compared with $144.9 billion on February 25, 2009.

The value of these assets was also marginally higher than the $198.1 billion reached on February 10, this year.  The bank’s foreign assets represented 53 per cent of its total assets, which climbed to $381.64 billion on February 24, compared with $375 billion on February 10 of this year and $284.1 billion in February of 2009.

Reduction in interest income

The JDX has led to a significant reduction in the interest income being earned by the bank on its holdings of government securities.  The bank held some $12.9 billion investment debentures and $123.3 billion in other marketable securities as at the end February.

This amount was about 35 per cent the bank’s total assets, as at the end of February.  However, despite this reduction in the interest it is earning on its holdings of government securities, the central bank is still paying a higher rate to investors on its open market instruments.  The bank’s open market instruments amounted to $109.9 billion, as at the end of February, down from $112.2 billion on February 10.

The losses of the central bank are hugged up by the Government of Jamaica (GoJ), which will add to the national debt.  The national debt currently stands at $1.50 trillion.  A similar situation is taking place in other public sector agencies such as the National Insurance Fund (NIF), National Housing Trust (NHT) and all other agencies, which hold government securities.  Any reduction in the profits generated by these agencies, would impact on the provision of basic social services. Meanwhile, many of country’s major private sector companies, including the National Commercial Bank Group Limited, Scotia Group Jamaica and the Seprod Group Limited have been reporting reductions in their net interest income and profits.  NCB recently made the post of some 130 workers redundant, as it tries to do more with less in order to cope with the negative effects of the JDX in the first wave of an ongoing streamlining exercise. Scotia DBG Investments says the negative effects of the JDX would force it to accelerate its rationalization programme.  Anya Schnoor, chief executive officer of Scotia DBG Investments, says the JDX would have a negative impact on the amount of money the company would be able to earn in net interest income in the future and as a result, it would have to accelerate the implementation of plans to become more efficient.

The company’s net interest income — the difference between interest paid on investments and that earned from investing in non-productive government paper — zipped by 60 per cent to $995 million during the first quarter of this financial year, up from the $623 million raked in during the previous year.  This amount, which was however, marginally lower than the $999.7 million garnered during the previous quarter, could fall even further under the JDX.

The Seprod Group is reporting a $50 million reduction in its interest income this year because of the impact of JDX.  The conglomerate is reporting that it exchanged some $685 million in Jamaican dollar denominated securities at a rate of 12.1 per cent per annum, down from 19.1 per cent per annum and US$1 million at a rate of 6.75 per cent per annum, down from 7.5 per cent per annum.

The National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) has cracked its whip serving several prominent companies — Seprod, Caribbean Broilers, Musson Jamaica and Dairy Industries — with enforcement notices for major environmental breaches contributing to the pollution of the Kingston Harbour.

In addition several other subsidiaries of Grace Foods, Red Stripe, Jamaica Flour Mills, Jamaica Public Service (JPS), Caribbean Cement Company, Jamaica Biscuit Company and Pepsi Cola Jamaica have all run afoul of environmental laws but no enforcement notices have been served.

The Sunday Herald has obtained a list prepared by the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA) pointing out some of the main pollutants in Jamaica, particularly to the  pollution of the Kingston Harbour.   Information minister Daryl Vaz who made the presentation in the House in response to private members motion by Member of Parliament Ronnie Thwaites,who was presented with a copy of the NEPA report.

The document was prepared in the context of the Kingston Harbour Initiative, which seeks to reverse the pollution that has been taking place in the Kingston Harbour.

Environmental breaches

Caribbean Products Limited, a subsidiary of Seprod could be considered the biggest polluter of the lot, based on the litany of environmental breaches and citations against the food processing company.

Caribbean Products has been served with an enforcement notice regarding the immediate bonding of air tanks storing hazardous material to contain 120 per cent of the capacity of the tanks.

The enforcement notice also requires the immediate cessation of all oily water leaving the plant and to immediately clean all drains (internal and external) containing oily sludge.

In addition, the notice mandates the company to obtain an environmental licence for the discharge of trade effluent, and an environmental permit for the construction of a wastewater treatment facility.

Caribbean Products has been requested to provide NEPA with copies of its most recent ISO 1400 certification and the names of its environmental auditors.

The Seprod subsidiary has been ordered to provide the environmental watchdog agency with a decommissioning plan for the petroleum tank no longer in use and copies of spill management procedures such as hazard training for staff.

Caribbean Broilers was issued with two breach notices, the latest being two weeks ago when the company was served a notice for the operation of a waste water treatment plant without a permit.

In-house discussions are now taking place to determine the next course of action to have the chicken processing company comply with the law.

Breach notices

Caribbean Broilers through its subsidiary, Nutramix  Newport Mills Limited, which manufacturers chicken feed, was served with a breach notice four weeks ago for fuel spill.

In addition, the company was sent a warning letter pointing to the need for the installation of a secondary containment for all liquids (except water) stored on the property as well as developing an emergency response plan and spill response guidelines.

Nutramix has also been advised of the need to have a fire certificate.

Musson Jamaica, another food processing company, has also been served with an enforcement notice identifying several environmental breaches and concerns such as the requirement of a licence for discharging trade effluent and an environmental permit for the treatment facility.

NEPA pointed to an overflow pipe from the sewage pit, which ought to be closed off from entering the drain, petroleum storage tank to be bonded, remediation plan to be submitted for petroleum contamination, spill management plan and hazardous material training for staff.

Dairy Industries, a food manufacturer, was served with a breach notice on February 11 for the discharge of untreated effluent.

Food Ingredients Limited, which manufacturers margarine and emulsifier among other things, was served with a breach notice on February 4 for discharging trade effluent without a licence.

Cool Petroleum and Newport Fersan were served with a breach notice on February 2 and February 4 respectively.  Cool Petroleum was cited for installing petroleum storage tanks without a licence, while Newport Fersan, which imports and blends inorganic fertilizers was cited for a similar offence.

Cautioned

Red Stripe has been cautioned about the need for an environmental permit for petroleum storage and bonding all tanks storing hazardous material to a capacity of 120 per cent of the volume of the tank, while Jamaica Biscuit Company was cited for not having an environmental licence for discharging trade effluent and an environmental permit for the treatment facility.

The Jamaica Biscuit Company is further cited for not bonding of all tanks storing hazardous material to a capacity of 120 per cent of the volume of the tanks and the absence of a spill management plan and fire certification for the facility.

Caribbean Cement, JPS Hunts Bay and Jamaica Flour Mills were all sent warning letters last month for various environmental breaches such as failure to have a secondary containment for all liquids (except water) stored on the property.

Salada Food, which manufacturers instant coffee, Agro Grace, H.D. Hopwood, IGL, Pepsi Cola Jamaica, Caribbean Flavours & Fragrances, Edgechem, Quality Chemicals, Shirlhome Chemical Corporation and Johnson Diversey, which imports chemicals for retail, were among the companies sent warning letters.

The companies were cited for environmental breaches and concerns such as no spill response guidelines and fire certificates and bonded areas around solvents in need of repair.

Companies including Seprod, subsidiaries of Grace Foods, Jamaica Ethanol, Jamaica Livestock Supreme Feeds, Big City Brewery and City Butchery, a food processing company, were placed on the environmental watch list even though no environmental concerns were noted in the document.