On Saturday, November 4, 2006 my second son, Maurice Andre, 'tied the knot' at the Sts Peter and Paul church at Liguanea. The ceremony was supposed to have kicked off at 3:00 pm, but due to a minor traffic accident involving the groom and his party (myself included) there was an hour's delay.

One very special guest who arrived promptly at 3:00 but waited the entire hour until the ceremony got under way was the prime minister of Jamaica, Portia Simpson Miller. From the early years of my son's involvement in local athletics, to his attaining international rankings, Portia as minister of sports has maintained close links with him and other athletes.

Maurice Wignall and his bride Janelle Atkinson being greeted by Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller at their wedding last month.

I cannot say exactly when Maurice had decided to invite the prime minister, but what I do know is, while he was in traffic after the minor traffic accident he was very concerned that Portia would leave before he arrived. Well, she did not, and was present at the end to give the newlyweds her personal blessings and her love for them as young Jamaicans doing their part as good citizens.

For nearly one month I have been struggling with making a decision on writing about the prime minister's attendance at my son's wedding. First, at the picture-taking event outside the church, just about everyone wanted their pictures taken with Portia. Although I did appear in a group picture with the prime minister, I found that I did not have it in me to make the simple move of stepping over to her and saying 'thanks, prime minister', although Maurice had done that earlier. For that I must apologise.

As the person who has become the harshest critic of the prime minister after being one of her most ardent admirers and supporters in the days leading up to her installation as prime minister, I found myself in a quandary as I stood outside the church. Even as my ex-wife, my best friend Ann Marie, nudged me in the side and said, 'Daddy, go and say hi to Portia,' I just did not have it in me to do so.

One, the wedding was held on a Saturday, and my column which would appear on the next day, Sunday, was one harshly critical of the prime minister's stewardship. Could I have feigned a smile, summoned the will to make those few steps over to her and then say, 'Hi prime minister, thanks for coming'. How would that have squared with the day after when someone from Jamaica House would signal to the PM that 'Wignall is at it again, prime minister'.

Maybe I am taking myself too seriously, figuring that am I worth more than a hill of beans in this whole convoluted world. As a newspaper columnist it was my duty to walk over to the prime minister and say my hellos rather than the other way around. But again my thoughts went to that moment after the greeting.

What would I say after that?
To the prime minister's credit, she did not take with her any official cameraman to make a media meal of the private affair. I can think of at least two prime ministers who would have milked the ceremony for all it was worth in an effort to demonstrate that, national differences aside, they attended the wedding ceremony of the son of the columnist who had been mounting the harshest criticisms of the prime minister. The newspapers would carry the photographs the next day. For that, the prime minister earns my respect.

Some years ago, while exiting a supermarket in Barbican, I saw the wife of an ex-prime minister of Jamaica. While spending a few minutes trying to decide whether I should greet her, considering how much of a thorn in her husband's side I had been, I opted to turn back and greet her. In returning my greeting, she gave me such an icy stare that as much as she attempted to mask her hostility, it came through loud and clear.

While I saw not even the faintest sign that Portia had any hostility in her, I did appear in a group picture with Portia at the left and me at the right. This column says thanks to the prime minister for her graciousness, her charm and waiting the one hour during which she could easily have left and attended to matters of state.
Thanks again, Portia.

Is this really Havendale?

Many of the uptown, middle-class, residential schemes built in the 1960s have been able to hold their own in terms of hosting dwellers who have a firm commitment to the words 'community', 'cleanness' and 'order.' Housing developments like Mona, Havendale and Meadowbrook were built for those professionals who desired a little bit of their own 'middle-class' space while working hard and raising their children.

The corner of Vermont and Madison avenues in Havendale.

Over the years, lower middle-class developments such as Harbour View, Patrick City and Duhaney Park have suffered, as owners sold and moved upwards, while an increasing generation of 'blingites' have moved in. Harbour View has been particularly hard hit by the haphazard development of housing on the hills above it.

The Bayshore housing development is anything but a development. It is more 'scrimmage' than anything else, and runaway criminality has been a feature of sections of the scheme. Now, all residents of Harbour View can do is gaze on as the authorities give carte blanche to the ramshackle development looking down on them.
Mona has done quite well and its property values have held their own.

Driving through Mona, one senses 'order' and 'pride'. While housing in Meadowbrook and Havendale are still hot items for persons seeking prices from $8 million up, and rental - entire houses ($40,000 up), sides of houses ($20,000 up) - there are signs that as a new influx of residents look to chase the holy dollar, not much is being done by them in looking at the bigger picture; keeping the community clean and presentable.

The following are some pictures I took around Havendale. I am certain that readers have their own horror stories to tell too.

One picture shows tall grass growing in the middle of a road! One resident with whom I spoke said she had been living in the community for two years and the growth has been there since she arrived. Open lots have garbage strewn all over, and while one park is being repaired by the UDC and some roads have been repaired (election fever) others are in a state of severe damage.

The Trafigura money

In all of the charges and countercharges over the PNP's acceptance of money from Trafigura Beheer while the Government was engaged in official business with the Dutch-based company, we are still uncertain if the amount which arrived in Jamaica was J$38 million or J$31 million.

What we do know is that J$31.25 million arrived in an account belonging to Colin Campbell (CCOC Association) and also that under the signature of Colin Campbell and one other person, J$30 million was sent to an account named SW Services (Team Jamaica).

In the process of drawing cheques to SW Services one was drawn from the CCOC account to Colin Campbell, (signed by Campbell and another person) for J$465,000.
We can also remember PNP chairman Bobby Pickersgill pushing his confident face in the cameras and reminding us that "$31 million is not money!"

I have a few questions for Minister Pickersgill. How many euros did Trafigura transfer from their account in Amsterdam to CCOC in September?
If the money did in fact arrive as a 'donation' to the PNP, how did Colin Campbell draw a cheque for J$465,000 payable to himself?

If, between September 6 and 12, more than J$31 million arrived in Jamaica for the PNP and it was placed in the CCOC account, why did Campbell draw cheques totalling only J$30 million to SW services (the PNP account, we are told)?

If the amount of the money transferred from Amsterdam to Jamaica exceeds by far the $30 million lodged in the SW Services (Team Jamaica) account, where is the rest of the money?
Has the Trafigura money been sent back yet?

Port Maria a battered Town

They built a bridge, the Highway 2000 people, and it became a dam which flooded a town during heavy rainfall. The 'little' people said the bridge was too low, but 'little' people are hardly ever listened to.

The brains of the engineering crew did not, after all, have to live in Port Maria and its environs. The outskirts of Port Maria have long been a haunt for writers and other creative persons from foreign shores. What these foreigners saw in the town and its outer communities was earth's little touch of paradise. In one day of rains, paradise was ruined.

For many years there have been valiant efforts on the part of persons like G O Whittaker, a Jamaican academic specialising in Urban Planning. In its simplest form, Whittaker has been preaching to the PNP and the JLP that there is a cost factor in the delivery of services from a highly centralised local government apparatus in Kingston to rural and other outlying areas.

This system recognises that the counties (Cornwall, Middlesex, Surrey) have some useful values apart from being just two imaginary lines on the Jamaican map separating the three areas. If county councils were set up with their own tax base and other funding mechanisms to fund road maintenance, river training, garbage collection, and erect signs, etc, there would be an increase in the time it took from problem to solution.

According to Whittaker's thesis, the 'time value of money' is key in that in a centralised system such as we have now, by the time the prime minister visits for her photo op and all the other politicians gather around to shake their heads and commiserate with the poor people in places like Port Maria, had community councils been in place, the delivery of services would long be in train.

But Whittaker's thesis has another useful side to it. Had there been a working community council in, say, Surrey, where Port Maria would fall, the knowledge of the community's residents would have been called on BEFORE the building of the bridge. Too much of the focus of government in this country is KINGSTON.

What that means is, once the Highway 2000 reached the stage where the building of the bridge was being considered, consultations with the local population were not seen as any great priority because the masters from the great house in KINGSTON are not interested in hearing from anyone except what their computer modelling tells them.

I happen to know that G O Whittaker (shugapro@aol.com) has been in touch with persons in both political parties with a view to having them make an examination of his position. In all of this I am certain that the prime minister is also aware of the community councils model.

Change is painful, especially to politicians with their overblown egos. If one bright politician in the Cabinet should suddenly 'discover' the community councils model and he or she was able to convince the Government to begin the process of instituting it, it would be hailed as the most progressive step by any government since 1962.

Since it is being championed by a citizen whose only claim to fame is his love for his country, it remains dead in the water, dammed by an improperly constructed bridge.
I am not the only columnist to have carried in the pages of this newspaper the position being championed by a concerned, bright, capable Jamaican, Professor G O Whittaker. I am inviting the prime minister (once again?) to make contact with this Jamaican.
What is there to lose?

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