New players, old politics

 Robert Buddan,Contributor

Following the recent internal elections in the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), Mike Henry has been elevated to the chairmanship of the party. The new general secretary, Aundré Franklyn, has said that his priority is completing the selection of candidates for the next general elections so Government can be ready to call an election as soon as it wants to. Henry and Franklyn are new power players in Jamaica's politics, but is it going to be more of the old politics?

Mark Wignall thought the changes in the party were more about repositioning than reform, this despite the talk about younger faces and a new generation. It doesn't add up when the JLP's young professional arm, Generation 2000 (G2K) supported the 75-year-old Mike Henry for the chairmanship of the party and backed Daryl Vaz over Franklyn for general secretary. Franklyn is both younger and has been closer to the G2K than Vaz has been. In fact, I don't know that Vaz has been at all. Probably, Wignall is right. G2K is repositioning, not seeking renewal. G2K is simply backing the people with the money. Money is what it feels the party needs most to win the next elections, and winning the next elections is what G2K wants most.

Mike Henry has money. He has control of US$400 million from a Chinese loan as minister of transport and works. Daryl Vaz was the deputy treasurer of the party. More important, he has direct contact with the biggest private-sector financial providers of the party. Some of what he does is quite controversial too. It was he who, according to the party leader and prime minister, was instructed to pay Manatt, Phelps & Phillips for services that would assist in the Coke extradition.

Fuelling speculation

Pork-barrel politics is old politics. On September 11 this year a Gleaner editorial was wary about it. It said, "Mike Henry, the transport minister, is wrong to brush aside concerns about how public money is being spent as part of the massive infrastructure development programme which was launched in Manchester on Thursday. He runs the danger of fuelling speculation of more pork-barrel politics." This is even truer now that Mr Henry occupies a position that gives him much more power in the party and Government than before. He is no less than a major power broker in deciding who gets what, when, where and how.

People's National Party spokesperson, Peter Bunting, and the Manchester Parish Council, had raised concerns about how the roads to be repaired or built and the contractors who would do the job were to be selected. Bunting said, from what he saw, the roads selected were mainly in constituencies and divisions controlled by the Jamaica Labour Party. Even worse, Bunting said the National Contracts Commission and the Office of the Contractor General had been bypassed in the process of awarding contracts.

Indeed, the parish councils also had reason to be alarmed. A Single Road Authority, it was again announced, would be established. This would literally be the single determinant of who gets what, when, where and how. The parish councils would no longer have a say in identifying community roads that needed repairs. Power was to be centralised in Minister Henry's hands. PNP spokesman, Colin Fagan, put it this way: "Centralisation of local government in the OPM provides an already powerful prime minister and central executive with even more power to say who gets what, when, where and how. This is the problem of patronage. Patronage can be administered from the centre and made to operate through government MPs and ministers to favour political supporters."

A whole restructuring of governance was taking place to facilitate pork-barrel politics. It was becoming pork-barrel governance, not simply acts of pork-barrel politics here and there as it used to be. Take the Road Maintenance Fund, for example. The fund was established to oversee the funds that were to be devoted to road maintenance. But questions as to its transparency and accountability for funds raised by Opposition spokesman Robert Pickersgill, were never answered,

Also there were questions from Omar Davies anbout hopw much money the fund will receive with implications for howmuch the Ministry will spend.

More recent, on December 10, the PNP declared concern over the way Christmas work was being distributed. It has asked Mike Henry to explain information it had that two JLP candidates, defeated in the 2007 elections, had received contracts to do work in Hanover. It said that two JLP candidates, who ran unsuccessfully in the last local government elections, had also received contracts. D.K. Duncan of the PNP said $1 million had been allocated to unelected politicians in Hanover. He said it was clear that the JLP was using the allocation of monies this way with a political agenda in mind. Derrick Kellier, PNP MP, has charged that the Government was allocating money to "pure Labourite councillors". He said this in his debate on the Supplementary Estimates. None of the money had been allocated to PNP councillors.

Payback

The governance structure for pork-barrel politics must invent alternatives to transparency and accountability in the award of contracts. It must do this, the theory goes, if Government is to be able to reward its financial contributors and supporters and keep them happy to sponsor the next election campaign. This is a widespread perception of what happens in American politics, for example. The Office of the Contractor General (OCG) is now asking the Cabinet secretary to furnish information by December 29 about the reported divestment of Sandals Whitehouse Hotel.

In May this year, the OCG had criticised the Government for proposing to award a $400-million contract to a Government of Jamaica/Port Reliant/Hongfan partnership in a way that was not open, competitive and transparent. Government was trying to sell its 45 per cent stake in Clarendon Alumina Company to a Chinese company, Hongfan. It warned the Government against bypassing the OCG Act, which is to ensure that contracts are awarded impartially and on merit.

On December 1, the Opposition also complained that a new Cabinet policy would allow Government to bypass the OCG to recognise contractors as registered, even if their licences had expired. This was only within the power of the OCG to do.

The OCG released a statement on December 9 on the occasion of International Anti-Corruption Day. In part, the statement warned against practices where, "Unscrupulous businessmen agree to pay corrupt public officials kickbacks for the award of lucrative State contracts, when public assets are sold below value to connected parties, when government contracts or licences are awarded to politically connected persons or to corporate entities in return for political campaign donations, or when foreign financial aid is illegally diverted into the private bank accounts of public officials." Whether it is Christmas work or elections, we must be warned.

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. Email: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm or columns@gleanerjm.com