Levy encourages Christians to pray for Jamaica’s leaders
CHIEF Executive Officer of Jamaica Broilers Robert Levy has called on members of the Christian community to pray for the country’s leaders.
“We must pray to God to guide and protect them from people who can come with schemes and plans that can embarrass and damage the country,” Levy remarked.
He was addressing a panel discussion last week on “the role of Christianity in corporate Jamaica”, at the Hope United Church in Kingston.
Making a tacit reference to the controversy involving Dutch oil trading company Trafigura Beheer, the top executive said the country has been undergoing “a very difficult time”.
“It is a very difficult time for our country. I have a burden, and it is that we must pray for those in authority and I know the prime minister has a heart to be guided by God. She has instituted prayer before every Cabinet meeting. For us as Christians, we know that they need our prayers,” Levy noted.
The four-member panel, which included Sandra Shirley, president of First Global Financial Services; Donna Duncan-Scott, director of Jamaica Money Market Brokers Limited; and Earl Richards, president of the Airports Authority of Jamaica, also concluded that a return to practising core Christian values in everyday business engagements was the catalyst to preventing further breakdowns in integrity.
First Global’s Sandra Shirley, speaking to the topic “The importance of ethics and Christian principles in corporate Jamaica”, noted that “tough negotiations must be fair and honest”.
“When you’re telling the truth you never have to remember what you said yesterday. if you are telling a lie you always have to remember what the lie was,” Shirley reasoned.
“When you deal with someone or an organisation where you cannot rely on the integrity of the representatives and you cannot rely on what they are telling you, then what happens is that in the future you don’t want to deal with them,” she added.
Furthermore, she said that “infractions (be dealt) with quickly” and business partners should be carefully chosen.
“There are no moral shortcuts in this game called life or business,” Shirley added.
Duncan-Scott pointed to the need for leaders to clearly establish and communicate their standards to persons within their organisations. This, she said, allowed for persons to be held accountable in the event of a violation.
She was addressing the topic, “Creating a culture of Christian values and high ethical standards”.
While participants steered clear of making any explicit references to the Trafigura controversy, Richards addressed concerns about whether there should be full disclosure about contributions to political parties. He remarked that any such move would be somewhat revolutionary.
“I really do believe that it is somewhat revolutionary for private entities to disclose information of their contribution to political parties. I think we need to recognise that it is a revolutionary thing,” Richards noted.
“The recent [development] has brought the issue to the fore and has given us an opportunity to think radically about what we need to do to make significant changes that we are so reluctant to make; and I say this in the context of engagement,” he added.