It’s been an interesting and thoughtful start to the year on many levels. There are some major challenges ahead this year, but Jamaicans are getting back to work quietly. We have to put our best feet forward in 2015!
Politicians and the social media minefield: Social media is still proving a major headache for some of our younger politicians in particular. They need help! I wrote about this in my weekly article for the Gleaner Online here: http://gleanerblogs.com/socialimpact/?p=2438 And this morning Dr. Marcia Forbes (my social media inspiration) wrote in the Gleaner itself on the same topic in a piece headlined “A Lesson for Minister Arnaldo Brown,” (he’s the latest young politician to fall afoul of Twitter) here: http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20150106/cleisure/cleisure3.html We are on the same page. Minister Brown recently took a bashing from the media over his J$1 million telephone bill.
“Holding a steady path”: I listened to a radio interview with National Security Minister Peter Bunting today. During the discussion the Minister’s Twitter account kept up a steady flow of tweets. @PeterBuntingMP also followed up to answer a couple of questions he had not addressed via Twitter later on. This is a commendable use of social media and of course I shared the information gleaned from the Minister. My question about “outside pressure” on the Minister to do the right thing as far as crime-fighting was concerned was only partly answered: Minister Bunting turned it around by responding that Jamaica receives “tremendous co-operation from international partners” – that is, the U.S., UK, Canada, and more indirectly the European Union. He cited their assistance in the creation of the Major Organised Crime and Anti-Corruption Agency (MOCA). I would like to see @MOCAJamaica tweeting more this year!
No doubt, though that gains have been made in the reduction in major crimes and a major drop in police killings. Jamaicans haven’t given the Minister much credit for it all but he conceded that security issues are often “emotive and polarizing.” (I would also like to see people assess the performance of our Ministers based on actual results and evidence, not on a gut feeling). Minister Bunting seems to have a good working relationship with the new Police Commissioner and I personally welcome the community-based approach of the “Unite for Change” program – one sign of this being the reduction of curfews in troubled communities to almost none. Also I am glad to see that some headway on the lotto scam issue; Minister Bunting claims to see a “significant increase in convictions” under the legislation, noting that most of those charged submit guilty pleas.
2015 murders, though… Help! RJR News reported this evening that there have been 21 murders in the first six days of the year. Words fail me…
The murder of a much-loved community member, Justice of the Peace and retired hospital matron on New Year’s Eve is still reverberating in Green Park, Trelawny and across Jamaica. Two sixteen-year-olds (one, I hear, was known to the victim) were charged today with the murder of 79-year-old Hyacinth Hayden at her home. A number of “returning residents” have settled in the area; one spoke poignantly on a radio talk show about their sense of insecurity, even alienation from the communities in which they live. “We are Jamaicans, too,” she said, “We are not foreigners.” Ms. Hayden was known as a philanthropist and a kind person. This was a particularly painful start to 2015. Please, let us not prey on each other in this way. Communities must come together.
The IMF bites: No doubt. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) “bites hot” as Jamaicans would say. The social repercussions of steady budget cuts is especially noticeable in the health sector. For at least the past year, there have been persistent reports of shortages of equipment, items like bed linen, etc. Similarly, reports on poor service and rude, even abusive nurses and doctors have proliferated. The Jamaica Observer newspaper has focused on the issues recently. After keeping its citizens safe, surely keeping them healthy must be the highest priority for any government. How serious is the situation? Are people dying due to a lack of proper care in our public hospitals? A health official says generous donations from Food for the Poor, Shaggy’s foundation and other charities are still not enough. Well, of course they’re not. You can’t run a public health system on charity.
And by the way, where IS the Health Ministry? Having been forced to move from the downtown building, which was sold, it has moved into various buildings (no doubt with expensive rental price tags) in New Kingston, including the former offices of Digicel but also other smaller buildings.
Nothing less than eight to ten per cent: Trade unionist Danny Roberts said public sector workers will not accept less than this in terms of a pay rise this year. Today the Ministry of Education said the disgruntled teachers would get a raise. He seems to have checked with the Minister of IMF, Peter Phillips. In my last blog I noted the IMF’s heavy hint in its recent overview that the government must exercise wage restraint. Are job cuts inevitable, or can this balance, aiming to reduce public sector wages to nine per cent by next year, be achieved by “attrition”?
Money and fuel: The Private Sector Organization of Jamaica is still (understandably) niggling about the cost of lower oil prices not being reflected in the cost of gasoline or in our electricity bills. With global energy prices down by nearly 60%, gas prices in Jamaica are down by only 28%, they claim. Electricity fuel costs are down much less. Meanwhile, it seems the Jamaica Public Service Company is not going to get the rate increase it requested.
Hope Botanical Gardens? Or Mas Camp? Hope Gardens is a beautiful green space, with rolling lawns and huge tropical trees and a wonderful pond full of herons and moorhens. We have spent many happy hours strolling there with our young son. A relic of colonial days, yes – but a fine one, full of birds (the wild kind) and plants. Now Carnival season is upon us, and the owners/operators of Hope Zoo adjoining the gardens, have decided to have loud soca “fetes” there. I suppose money talks. But can you imagine how terrified the animals must be at such noise? The one lonely lion (Lucas) could have a heart attack at any time (although I hear he may be getting a “girlfriend” soon). The entrance fee to the Zoo is exorbitant, too. But the partygoers and moneymakers must have their way, at the expense of everything else.
“Little short people,” Minister Derrick Kellier? Who were you referring to (with a smirk) when addressing a group of departing agricultural workers? Don’t do that.
Meanwhile, sewage flows unchecked… This time in Portmore Pines. The National Water Commission has come up with a valid explanation – that their station was vandalized for the second time in a few weeks. And the sewage will continue flowing in various communities across Jamaica. I should start keeping a tally of them.
Two 14 year-old girls are missing from Old Harbour, St. Catherine. Descriptions are sent out – but why are photographs so rarely available? I hope they return home safe and sound. So many missing people, and we never know how many of them do come home, at all… I remember blogging about this at length some two years ago.
“Nesta’s Rock” opens this Friday! The wonderful Jamaica Junior Theatre’s 2015 production of “Nesta’s Rock,” (partnering with Tuff Gong International)- an original children’s musical inspired by Bob Marley’s life – opens on Friday, January 9 at the Phillip Sherlock Centre for the Performing Arts at the University of the West Indies. It will run until February 22, with a special show on Bob’s seventieth birthday (February 6). This is the JJT’s 53rd full musical production since its founding in 1983. For details contact producer Danielle Stiebel (email: media@jamaicamusicaltheatre.com; tel: 848-4431). On Twitter @jajuniortheatre and on Facebook. This should be wonderful!
Awesomeness is acknowledged, coming from:
- Jean and Hubie Lowrie-Chin, who recently donated a house (in honor of their fathers Joscelyn Lowrie and Ralph Chin) through Food for the Poor to the Galette family in Haiti. They tweeted: “All we have is from #God.. So we’re just trying to be stewards of His gracious #blessings.” I am in awe.
- Dr. Dayton Campbell, M.P., who responded to a newspaper article about a paralyzed woman in need of help by swiftly donating a wheelchair, allowing her to attend her daughter’s school graduation. Kudos to you, Dr. Campbell!
- Facebook users who donated money (and volunteered their time) after councillor/caretaker for the Brown’s Town division Kim Brown Lawrence made a post on Facebook about the appalling conditions in which a woman and four boys were living in rural St. Ann. A new house is now under construction and should be finished by the end of the month. This is wonderful kindness.
- Barbara Blake Hannah, who tends the flame of Jamaican culture (especially film) with passion. The Jamaica International Reggae Film Festival will be in Ocho Rios, June 2 – 6, 2015. Entry forms are available on submission of a trailer, synopsis and director’s biography to the festival email address: reggaefilmfestival@gmail.com. More details at http://jamediapro8.wix.com/reggae-film-festival. You can also find updates on the Reggae Film Festival Facebook page and contact them at (876) 587-3800 and at P.O. Box 727, Kingston 6, Jamaica.
Ending on a very sad note, I am recording the names of those who have lost their lives violently since I last posted. My deepest condolences, as always, to their families and friends. Uptown and downtown, young and old, they are all Jamaicans. We must not forget the lives they lived.
Odane Thompson, 20, Castle Heights/Barbican, Kingston
Radcliffe Richards, 40, Kitson Town, St. Catherine
Wendy-Ann Byfield Richards, 40, Kitson Town, St. Catherine
Okeita Shaw, Spanish Town, St. Catherine
Amore Moore, 33, Gregory Park/Portmore, St. Catherine
Calvin Smith, 49, Guy’s Hill, St. Catherine
Kemar McLeod, 30, Mt. Salem, St. James
Kemaul Stewart Deans, 31, Montego Bay, St. James
Michael Pennicooke, 26, Prospect, Hanover
Gladstone Blackwell, 21, Parry Town, St. Ann
Petchary's Blog 
Always hitting the nail on the head Petchary! Thanks!!!
LikeLike
If I understood, JPS has a huge deficit and running at a loss so passing on cost savings in full doesn’t help THEM. Things would look different if they collected in full from customers. An update on that always welcome from Kelly 😊
LikeLike
Yes, that has been a JPS problem forever. Ms. Tomblin is a lot more open about it than her predecessors. The tiefing “customers” remain a huge issue and I am not sure how that battle is going…
LikeLike