On Wednesday last as information began to flow in copiously to journalists and politicians, I listened to PNP General Secretary Colin Campbell, PNP Chairman Bobby Pickersgill and PNP legal advisor A J Nicholson speaking to the people through Morning Time and Nationwide. All men hold powerful Cabinet posts in the PNP administration.

As I took in every stuttered word, every painful attempt at forming a phrase and every mentally stressful moment behind each answer, I sat back and wished that I could cry. If I could I would have shed a bucketful of tears for this nation. After hearing this trio of 'honourable' men engaging all gears for the party they love and would wish to protect much more than the people whose lives they had long ago promised to increase in happiness, I hung my head in shame and felt real pain for this nation.

Years ago, the PNP's party chairman and everybody's nice guy, Bobby Pickersgill, told this nation that it was the PNP's belief that it was incumbent on it to form the government and anything that could be done to attain that end, the PNP would embark on that 'anything'.
As the ministers hung precariously to the letter of the law and discarded all attempts at even feigning decency, morality was suspended and we began to understand a part of the content of the 'anything'.

Here it is we have a company Trafigura Beheer BV based in Amsterdam. According to its website, Trafigura was founded in 1993. In its first decade the group developed a large infrastructure specialising in the energy and base metals market. The group's equity is now in excess of US$600 million.
Trafigura maintains over 55 offices in 36 countries in Europe, North, Central and South America, Africa, Asia and Australia in order to provide global coverage. Last year it made US$28.4 billion in its activities.

In short, in 1978 the government of Jamaica entered into a contract with the Nigerian government to purchase crude oil (presently 30,000 barrels per day). The contract which we later entered into with Trafigura is one of those called 'Evergreen', meaning it is renewable annually around September, and is terminable by either party giving at least 90 days' notice in writing. The oil from Nigeria cannot be refined at our refinery in Kingston because it is too light for the required specification of the Petrojam refinery.

Because of that we use Trafigura to 'lift' this oil from Nigeria and sell it on the world market. Knowing that Trafigura Beheer B V as a large transnational is much more intimately involved in the very complex international markets than we are, in any contracts we have with them, we begin with that information-gap disadvantage. According to the PNP government, the US$0.12 per barrel we receive is the best they could negotiate not just through Trafigura but when all the other offers from the other large oil traders are considered.

If Colin Campbell (left), the adored Bobby Pickersgill (centre) and our most holy attorney general AJ Nicholson would want us to believe that Trafigura Beheer is so altruistic and concerned about the PNP, we need to tell them to back off with that line because we are no gullible, babbling fools just waiting to bring out the orange and the yellow in support of such shameful behaviour.

In the period October 2000 to April 2006 a total of 34.5 million barrels were lifted and Jamaica netted US$2.4 million.
Last Wednesday Opposition leader Bruce Golding did what all effective leaders in his position would do. He identified a most damning irregularity involving Trafigura and the PNP. On various dates in September just prior to the PNP's huge conference, cheques from Trafigura were lodged in an account at First Caribbean, Newport West identified as CCOC Association c/o Portmore Gas.

The bank's records show that before these healthy donations came in, as of the end of August 31, 2006, the balance in the account was $413,930.

The Golding revelation was no mere empty chat. It was well supported by documentation. The total payment from Trafigura to the account of CCOC Association (said to be a PNP account) was 466,000 Euros or J$31 million. The lodgements arrived in this account in three (3) payments, one on September 6, then two more on September 12th.

For Trafigura (a company which holds nothing special about Jamaica in its heart beyond its business dealings with us) to donate an amount of money to the PNP rivalling the official receipts into the government's coffers, one can only imagine the huge profits the company is making off us.

Large multinationals in the commodities market are not exactly angels. If, as the trio of ministers in the form of the angelic Colin Campbell, the adored Bobby Pickersgill and our most holy attorney general AJ Nicholson would want us to believe, Trafigura Beheer is so altruistic and concerned about the PNP, we need to tell them to back off with that line because we are no gullible, babbling fools just waiting to bring out the orange and the yellow in support of such shameful behaviour.

If Trafigura had set out to donate money to the PNP's cause, there is the likelihood that someone in Trafigura would have said to someone in the PNP, 'How do you want the money?' It is also likely that someone in the PNP, someone quite powerful would have said, 'Give it to us in three cheques.' There is also the possibility that that PNP person could have said, 'Give it to us in five cheques.'

The point I am making is that we have identified J$31 million in three payments. Without imputing anything other than the gross immorality of a political party accepting funds from a totally foreign entity who does business with the administration formed by the same political party, it is useful to ask, did Trafigura 'cut the PNP' other cheques?

Trafigura Beheer's only business with Jamaica is in trading Nigerian oil. That is what we know now. The only reason why Trafigura would want to donate funds to the PNP would hinge on the business connection to the government being run by the same party. In other words, if Trafigura was not being used by the Jamaican government as a middleman in the Nigerian oil deal, and had the PNP gone cap-in-hand to that company seeking donations to the party's coffers, Trafigura would most probably have chased away the PNP and laughed in its face.

Even the most simple-minded can conclude that the only reason why Trafigura donated money to the PNP is because of the connection between them both- the Nigerian oil deal.
Let us now look at the account named CCOC Association. The information Minister is named C-o-l-i-n C-a-m-p-b-e-l-l. We have been told by the PNP's angelic trio that the account was opened just over16 years ago, which just happens to be the time when Colin Campbell was first elected.

When ace journalists like the Cliff Hughes team attempted to draw out from the PNP chairman (Pickersgill) and general secretary (Colin Campbell) what the CC in CCOC Association stood for, Campbell responded by saying, 'It's just a name.' Incredible!
The prime minister is MP for a constituency named South West St Andrew. Sometimes South West St Andrew is written 'SW St Andrew.'

One day after CCOC Association gets a deposit from Trafigura, a cheque for J$10,000,000 is drawn to SW Services (Team Jamaica). The PNP tells us that SW Services is the new national campaign account. SW Services then receives from CCOC Association another cheque for $20 million on September 12, 2006.

A source in the PNP which has made many valiant attempts to convince me that the (identified amount) donation from Trafigura is, like Pickersgill wants us to believe, a gift in the true spirit of international corporate altruism, has also told me that once Dr Vin Lawrence demitted the post of campaign chairman, other accounts had to be formed and working accounts were added to the list of those who met the qualifications for receiving such funding.

The CCOC Association was one such account which met those qualification. The PNP, however, must know that although the prime minister's conference speech indicated that she has come around to a fuller understanding of her role and authority and the impression was given that she had reined in the anti-Portia elements in the PNP and especially government, there is still a large body of persons who believe that the anti-Portia elements are very much alive in the party.

Even in the present matter there is disturbing talk. Let me leave that where it is and ask another pertinent set of questions.
If, in light of the absence of Dr Vin Lawrence, SW Services (Team Jamaica) was formed, why was the funding from Trafigura not sent directly to SW Services?

The documents which detailed the movement of monies in and out of the CCOC Association account between September 6 and September 21, just when the PNP was planning and having its 'mother of all conferences', the total amount which went into the CCOC account from Trafigura Beheer was J$31,251,744.39.

Of that J$31.25 million, as of September 21, J$30 million was paid over to SW Services (Team Jamaica) account, and one Colin Campbell, who happens to be a cosigner on the CCOC Association, wrote a cheque to himself for J$465,000. In the transaction, the back of the cheque indicates that the same Colin Campbell received J$320,000 in cash and the rest was used to deal with other accounts.

If the Colin Campbell to whom the cheque of $465,00 was paid is the same Colin Campbell who was one of the two signatures on the cheque, then he is well within his right to do what he wants with the account.

The PNP General Secretary has admitted on radio that he is the Colin Campbell on the cheque, both as person receiving the funds and the one who drew the cheque. The general secretary has admitted that in the manner how political parties run their business especially annual conferences, significant amounts of cash are needed.

This is the standard in both the PNP and JLP.
The general secretary should know that since the campaign to select the PNP president began late last year, in the short period between October 2005 and February 25, 2006, the PNP became the most cash-rich entity in Jamaica, rivalling established businesses like the American fast-food restaurants operating in Jamaica and the racehorse gaming outlets.

It is quite possible that the general secretary knew the extent of the poverty facing many PNP delegates and he needed the cash to pay for bus fare, lunch and transportation at a very local level. I have no problems with Colin Campbell, the PNP general secretary walking around with $320,000 cash in his pocket, especially since that cash represented a small part of the donation received from Trafigura for the specific purpose of conducting PNP business.

But simple arithmetic tells me that as of September 21, the CCOC Association account still has J$786,744.39 belonging to the account which we are told is the new PNP campaign funding one. I am assuming that it has already been paid over.

Another PNP source has told me that Trafigura donated to the JLP US$300,000 sometime in 2006. Hastily I checked with deputy treasurer of the JLP Daryl Vaz who said: "Bruce Golding, our party leader, did not come to the nation with loud noises and wild accusations. He documented the fact that an organisation that was doing business with the government of Jamaica had also donated funds to the ruling PNP.

"I say to the PNP, come up with the documents. I have checked with our treasurer and those in the past who would know. Most were not even familiar with the name. The PNP is lying."
According to Vaz, "It is nothing more than contempt for the people why the government has asked the people to accept their shameful explanation. Can you imagine how may sterilizers J$31 million could have bought for our run-down hospitals?"

My PNP source has flown me a beauty: "As you know, Mark, Trafigura's reputation cannot take any more licks especially after what happened to it in the toxic waste scandal and other problems. There is no way the company will support the move of providing us with documentation to show the JLP receipts," he said.
When I suggested to him that he was wasting my time with this speculation, we moved on to talk of other things. Documents or nothing!

The persons I heard on the radio making horribly failed attempts to explain away this PNP embarrassment are persons who, to my way of thinking, have lost all moral authority to continue in government. Sure I expect the PNP to explain, to spin, to obfuscate. But to ask sensible people in Jamaica to accept that 'Thirty-one million dollars is not money' (Pickersgill). To ask them to buy into the "It-is-not-unethical,-it-is-a-gift' spin is just too much for this nation.

To hear AJ Nicholson expounding on the matter and having the temerity to expect us to accept his kiss of death on the matter awakens all of the inner rage inside me. The legal mind of the man took over, and, as he lost the moral right to ask us to accept his explanation, everything which followed was just so much more PNP hogwash.

No one has proof that the PNP accepted the funds as a 'kickback' to doing business with Trafigura in the Nigerian oil deal. None of us have any proof that the donation was 'negotiated' at the same time the new government arrangements with Trafigura were being renegotiated.

It is not what it may be, but moreso the appearance that something shady COULD BE imputed from the coincidence of the contract date and the donation. If the PNP, having accepted this 'donation' from Trafigura, should win the next elections, what sort of authority and moral standing would the government negotiators expect Trafigura to hold them in when the contract comes up again for renegotiation?
Maybe the Trafigura representatives would be saying in our translation, 'Si di hungry bway dem deh. Mek wi just gi dem a food, hand dem di contract and sey, Sign Bway!'

It has now come about that the elusive Marc Rich who did business with the new JLP government of the early 1980s may have had something to do with the formation of Trafigura. The Google search engine tells us a lot about him. 'Whilst Marc Rich certainly didn't invent commodity trading he was its major architect and engineer.

Centered in London, the global oil trade can be said to improve the efficient use of fixed assets such as terminals, ships, refineries and production which oil majors and governments are not incentivised to put to best use.

His obvious corporate legacy is Glencore, a company he founded, domiciled in Geneva but centered in London, where the arts of trading were discerned and practised. Glencore also spawned and nourished (unwittingly) many imitations. The Oil Markets are now awash with trading companies such as Trafigura and Projector, attempting to profit both through the direction of risk capital towards vanilla trading of commodities on exchanges and in OTC markets, but also in the more opaque deals for which Marc Rich was infamous.'

Lovely word, opaque, meaning obscure, not clear and, quite possibly, hidden.

The international commodities traders which do business with Caribbean, Asian, Pacific and African countries have over time, established profiles of the average third-world government and its politicians. A few years ago when Audley Shaw made mention that a large multinational now doing business with the Jamaican government was 'kicking back' to 2 1/2% of the cost of the upfront deal, I wrote a column suggesting that Shaw sounded jealous that it was the PNP which was in the driver's seat.

The PNP is not made up of vestal virgins. In fact the opposite is more the case. The men are tired, but firm in the belief that after 17 years, they own the political landscape and any line can be sold to us because we are collectively stupid. The women in the PNP have grown arrogant, rude and are in need of finishing school.

One embarrassed PNP government official who is no friend of the prime minister said to another on Wednesday, "I'm tired of being caught flat-footed, hearing about these things only after they have gone awry."
For the sake of the democratic ideal, I am hoping that there are more like him in the corridors of political power. Silent now, but seething and struggling to look inward at himself and the government the party represents.

Many of the bunch of men and women calling themselves 'honourable' and PNP all need to be put in a barrel and rolled down a steep, rocky incline. After the upending it is probable that they could come out of it very badly wounded. In that case my real concern would be about damaging a good barrel.

Trousers in Denim

Cream of the 'Crop'

Cheeky's World