ADDRESSING a Rotary Club of St Andrew Installation Dinner event at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston on Monday night, the chairman and CEO of GraceKennedy, Douglas Orane, gave a memorable speech on creating a new vision of Jamaica that would result in a country where good citizenship prevails and the rule of law stands firm. Below is his presentation in full.

In recent times, our country has been shaken by events that are unprecedented in our history…events which must force every well-thinking Jamaican to take stock of where we are as a country and what road we must take if we are to turn our back on dark times.

I wish to share with you my thoughts on these troubling events, and to offer some ideas on how we can seize the moment to rebuild our country into a place in which we will be happy to live and raise our families.

I was actually away from Jamaica on May 24 when I got the news that armed thugs had openly challenged the authority of the State and were burning police stations and attacking the police. Like Jamaicans everywhere I watched helplessly as the events unfolded on the television screen, praying that our security forces were equipped and able to beat back this challenge.

One social and political analyst has described the events of the past few weeks as unparalleled in the history of our country. In fact, his take was that the closest parallel he would draw was with the social upheavals of the 1930s.

The events of May 24 were no accident Yet, we did not get to May 24 by accident. All the ingredients were in place: a country of just under three million persons with the second highest murder rate in the world, a corruption ranking that is among the highest in the region, and a highly sophisticated criminal network that is known and feared at home and abroad. Yet, up until recent months, we were prepared to carry on as if it were business as usual.

For over four decades we have flirted with a social experiment which has resulted in the marginalisation of entire communities whose residents have truly come to believe that their existence depends on the largesse of a politician or a don. We, the rest of the society, have given tacit approval of this experiment and so, on May 24, when our country, the laboratory for this experiment, exploded, very few ought to have been particularly surprised.

However, another, more optimistic, take on our situation is that in recent months we have also proven to ourselves that all is not lost and that, as members of civil society, we have the power to effect the changes that we want to see in our country.

A broad-based coalition of civil society — groups and individuals — has coalesced to strengthen non-partisan civic participation in the country’s affairs and I am very heartened by this united and passionate approach. We must move forward in identifying concrete ways in which civil society can continue to impact the required process of change. To attempt to go back to business as usual would mean ceding whatever ground has been gained and, believe me, we would then be in an even worse position in retreat. You can be sure that the forces of corruption in our country are surreptitiously working overtime, as we speak, to reverse the recent gains we have made.

Jamaica is at a defining

moment

I sense that we, in our society, are at a defining moment where we have the opportunity to change Jamaica to what we want it to be — a very different and much better place. However, I believe all wellthinking Jamaicans will agree that, in order to begin retaking our country, we must break the link between politicians and organised crime which is at the root of the issue. How are we going to do that? I would like to point to three critical things that need to happen as a matter of urgency.

The first is, we have to stop the flow of money to corrupt entities and individuals through the award of state contracts. We now need to bring a level of probity to the process to require that persons who receive state contracts, and sub-contracts are subjected to a fit and proper test. This would be done in much the same way that persons associated with financial institutions are vetted by the Bank of Jamaica or the Financial Services Commission.

In this regard, we need to increase support for the Office of the Contractor General to give that office more power to prosecute breaches of contract award guidelines. In fact, the contractor general himself has made specific recommendations for amendment of the Constitution to establish a National Independent Anti-Corruption State Agency. These recommendations need to be reviewed and decisions taken on how to proceed going forward.

Political party financing

The second critical issue is that of political party financing. We need to insist on the passage of the draft legislation on campaign funding that has been on the table since 2006. This would require our political parties to make clear and transparent the source of their financial support. I support the call by the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica for both major political parties to turn over their list of contributors to the political ombudsman on an annual basis. My personal position is that we need to go further and have full transparency, whereby all donations and donors are made public. In addition, it is essential that upper limits be set as to the maximum that any one donor can give to a political party, and as to the maximum that any party may spend in the course of an election campaign.

Certainly, from the perspective of the private sector we ought to take a decision individually not to make donations to political parties until there is demonstrated a tangibly greater level of accountability and transparency.

The third issue we need to address is the establishment of a system of integrity testing for persons who offer themselves for political office.

This would require greater transparency in selection of candidates in a way that would satisfy the electorate of the suitability of these candidates. Also, once elected, political representatives must be held to the requirement to publicly declare their assets as required by law, and prompt action to be taken where there are breaches.

The current situation in Jamaica presents a unique opportunity for each party to choose people who have no connection to organised crime, to lead each party forward with a clean slate of leadership for the future. I think that is what all law-abiding Jamaicans truly want and we must continue to push for a clear timetable on this approach.

Every just and well-ordered society is built on the ability of the government to pass the laws required to ensure stability, in a timely manner; on the ability of

the police to monitor public behaviour and apprehend those who break the laws; and on the judiciary to award swift and equitable justice to those who come before the courts. It is distressing to say that in Jamaica we cannot claim to have gotten even one out of the above three to the level that we can be proud of.

There is a raft of bills awaiting passage which would speak to reform in all the areas I have outlined, and yet we have a Parliament that meets on an average of 35 times per year. Compare this with data for 2007 from the Society of Clerks which shows that the UK House of Commons met 151 times, the Canadian House of Commons met 115 times, the Australian House of Representatives met 68 times for the year, the Kenyan house of Parliament 86 times and the Indian parliament 74 times.

Can you recognise a link between the time that elected parliamentarians spend on their nation’s business and the level of order in their society?

One Member of our Parliament recently complained that he has had 23 motions before the House since 2008 and still has not been able to get a date to present them. Is there a message here?

All of us Jamaicans are paying more taxes as of this year and our taxes are

paying the salaries of our elected representatives. We need our members of Parliament and senators to meet more often to debate and pass the laws that we need to govern our society. That is what they are being paid to do.

I submit also that we, the taxpayers of Jamaica have a right to hear, whether on a weekly or monthly basis, what laws have been passed, what is in the pipeline, and at what rate we are moving to have these laws passed.

The garrison phenomenon

Like most concerned Jamaicans, I have given some thought to where we go from here, because to dwell on the problems without offering some solutions would be a classic case of navel gazing. I wish to share some of these thoughts with you, as we ponder on what we need to do to restore our communities that have become so polarized over the years.

The garrison phenomenon emerged and became entrenched because of widespread urban poverty and the lack of social support for the most economically disadvantaged.

This created a situation where the loyalty of entire communities could be bought by anyone prepared to provide basic welfare services that should rightly come from the central state which is the repository of our tax dollars.

This situation has been exploited over the years by politicians who were then able to deliver ‘safe’ seats for their party, and later on by enterprising young men who emerged as community dons. Quite often these young men are highly intelligent, but have been deprived of the opportunity to develop their

intellect and channel it in positive directions.

Even as we call for the government and security forces to move decisively into the garrisons we must be equally aware of the urgency of filling the very real void left by the exit of the dons, and if we allow politicians to simply continue with more of the same, we are doomed to recreate the very scenario we now seek to change.

As the justice system goes after the dons that have established themselves in these communities, we need to move with urgency on the legislation concerning seizure of assets. The laws already exist in Jamaica through which the Financial Investigations Division, or FID, as it is popularly known — has the power to confiscate the assets of individuals who have illegally enriched themselves through organised crime by putting what is known as ‘civil recovery orders’ before the court. So we need to examine why this is not moving forward at a quicker pace and to demand that whatever additional resources that are necessary to facilitate the FID in this regard be provided.

Community restoration must also include strategies to rescue young people at risk. Our young men between ages 14 and 20 are the ones most at risk of being drafted into criminal activity, and dying as a result. Our educational system has largely failed these young men, many of whom never manage to finish school, or even if they graduate they do so without passing a single subject or acquiring a meaningful skill. One of my colleagues told me of interviewing a group of fourth and fifth form students at one of our most prominent high schools — asking them what were their plans for the future, and being told by most that they would be seeking to find work the minute they left school after fifth form because they had to look after the rest of the family.

Under a third entertained the thought of proceeding to university.

Setting good examples for

children

It is my very firm view that any efforts at community restoration must include plans for making our young men less vulnerable to recruitment into criminal activities. We also need to encourage our young women to stay in school and to provide them with positive female role models so they can see other alternatives besides early pregnancy and a lifetime of dependency.

I know that parents — by and large — want the best for their children. I do believe that, for the most part, a lot of parents are not happy with the direction in which their children seem to be drifting — as we adopt “foreign values” and a lack of respect for authority.

But it seems to me that we all have to look to ourselves to make sure that through our own behaviour we do not set bad examples. It’s not all about how “they behave” . It’s about how we behave as well. If we see ourselves as leaders of our society, then we should behave as leaders and not espouse objectionable behaviour.

See Part 2 next week