Dear Editor,

Television Jamaica recently made use of the Access to Information Act and brought light to the high phone bills of government ministers that are packing a punch of which Finance Minister Audley Shaw is a knockout.

Audley Shaw is facing a flurry of criticism from all angles for his super mobile phone bill for a one-year period soaring to over $8 million. The revelation has left Jamaicans crunching numbers trying to solve the equation: months (hours * rate) + x = $8.4 million.

This new mess of information makes the phone bill findings in 2014 of junior foreign affairs minister Arnaldo Brown from the People’s National Party of just over $1 million dollars look like chicken feed.

The questions, however, has got to be: Who pays the ministers’ monthly phone bills? And how long would this have continued if it were not made public?

If the ministers pay their own bills out of their pockets then, although irresponsible, it would be their choice. If it is at the public’s expense then it would be a blatant waste of taxpayers’ sweat and tears and the actions should result.

When a story or explanation can be given for a month’s bill being exorbitant, how do you explain 12 months?

It has been reported that the finance minister paid a portion and has negotiated for a discount. Is this a joke? Is the minister playing Monopoly with the people’s money?

What else are our leaders wasting?

This brings me to a saying that the late Wilmot “Motty” Perkins used to say,”Politics is about who gets what, when and how.”

Most Honourable Prime Minister, what is going on?

Hezekan Bolton

h_e_z_e@hotmail.com