By Peter Polack

Peter Polack

The Holness led Government of Jamaica has recently been ordered to pay J$120 million for the unlawful detention of a mentally ill man for 50 years.

This court judgment comes on the heels of a declaration that the country has the lowest murder rate for sometime as the prime minister wishes for doors and windows to be left unlocked.

The truth must lie somewhere between the citizens cowering in their homes against a range of crimes and statistics which have failed to expose the pervasive nationwide fear or the attacks on returning residents much to the despair of their communities.

The country is beset with corruption and hindrances to attempts to prosecute same.

This includes the case of a prime minister who has not had his disputed asset declarations published for three years; six members of parliament; and twenty-eight public officials under investigation for illicit enrichment and the recent resignation of the former speaker of the House of Parliament in regard to allegations of a false asset declaration.

That speaker’s position was promptly taken by the prime minister’s wife.

The now convicted ex-speaker is a candidate for the ruling JLP. 

The country’s Integrity Commission is one of the few voices in the darkness to oversight corruption. There is also the Financial Investigations Division which has become embroiled in a controversy with the appointment of a former football executive to lead this necessary adjunct to the fight against corruption. Proven anti-corruption leaders like Dirk Harrison and Greg Christie remain on the bench.

This is a widely view of Jamaicans in the diaspora and at home. Some have even demonstrated in foreign countries.

Can the election come soon enough?

All Jamaicans will have a clear decision, absent background cacophony, to select a road forward for the country.

The Jamaican diaspora contributes nearly one third of the GDP of Jamaica by remittances to that country. They have a right to be heard.

Who feels it, knows it.

Peter Polack is the author of The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013), Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017) and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2019). He was a contributor to Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013).