Opinion
- Editorial
Jamaica
Gleanner:
Not
so fast, Mr Buchanan
EDITORIAL
Despite his claim to the contrary, Donald Buchanan,
Information and Development Minister, could only
have been speaking for himself. He could not have
been speaking on behalf of the Government. He certainly
did not speak for the Jamaican people. For wish
as he may for it to be history, there remains unfinished
business in the Trafigura affair.
Not least of the matters to be addressed
is the apology that the chairman of the People's
National Party (PNP) and Minister of Transport and
Works, Robert Pickersgill, seems to have forgotten.
It is something that we had hoped that Mr. Pickersgill
- like the Attorney-General A.J. Nicholson and the
Foreign Minister Anthony Hylton after their faux
pas - would have remembered of his own accord. But
if Mr. Pickersgill, quite out of character, we believe,
lacks the grace to retreat and say sorry, then his
boss, Prime Minister Simpson Miller, must demand
that he does.
For as Mrs. Simpson Miller would
surely agree, Pickersgill's attack on Mark Myers,
the president of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce
(JCC), was not only in poor taste, but unworthy
of a healthy democracy and the fostering of the
development of civil society and its role in enhancing
the quality of governance.
Maybe with the passage of time,
some of us might not immediately recall the action
of Mr. Pickersgill that we found offensive. At a
revelation that Trafigura Beheer, a Dutch commodities
trader with which the Government does business,
had ostensibly donated J$31 million to Mr. Pickersgill's
party, Mr. Myers, on behalf of the chamber, called
for a full explanation and offered the JCC's good
office to help the political parties devise a protocol
for the management of political donations.
Mr. Pickersgill's dismissive response
was to declare Mr. Myers to be "genetically
linked" to the Opposition, obviously a reference
to the fact that he is the son-in-law of the Shadow
Health Minister, Dr. Kenneth Baugh. We expect Mr.
Pickersgill and his apologists will seek to excuse
his behaviour with some tit-for-tat explanation.
That, however, would be unworthy.
For it assumes that because of their familial relationships,
or for that matter political persuasions, people
are not capable of taking ethical and moral positions,
and should not be in positions of leadership except
in political organisations. Such thinking is not
only a stain on our democracy, but a recipe for
keeping our best talent away from public service
in all forms.
But back to Mr. Buchanan. We have
already argued that he was a bad choice as information
minister, a job that gives him a complex portfolio
and makes him the Government's chief spokesman.
He is already proving our point, with his potentially
foot-in-mouth declaration of the Trafigura affair
as history.
Well, we remind Mr. Buchanan of
our call for the DPP and the police, as well as
Parliament's Integrity Commission, to investigate
the role of Mr. Buchanan's predecessor, and any
other member of the Cabinet, in Trafigura's payment.
For no one is certain whether this was really a
gift to the PNP or payment for services rendered
by people in or having connection with the Government,
as was implied by Trafigura.
Jamaica
Gleanner is
one of Jamaica's news daily since 1834.
Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views.
Editor's
Note: The preciding article was first publish by
Jamaica Gleanner, Wednesday | October 25, 2006.
Petroleumworld reprint this article in the interest
of our readers.
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Petroleumworld
10/29/06
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