Miss Lisa Hanna has, it would seem, everything going for her: brains, comeliness, youth, articulateness and a party which apparently believes in her, to the extent of giving her an easy ride into Gordon House through Mr Seymour 'Foggy' Mullings' safe seat in Southeast St Ann.

Miss Hanna's appointment as minister of youth and culture reinforces the view that the People's National Party (PNP) leader, Mrs Portia Simpson Miller also believes in her.

Yet, in a real sense, Miss Hanna has not yet proven herself by successfully executing a major national project that would demonstrate the true mettle of the woman and the real Lisa Hanna. Her Miss World 1993 title suggests that on the basis of beauty and poise she has been a world class representative of Jamaica.

But now comes the real test.

In her capacity as youth and culture minister, Miss Hanna has responsibility for the programme of activities marking the 50th anniversary of political Independence. For those who have a broad and expansive vision of what this country can be, it is a rare opportunity to begin to right what went wrong since Independence in 1962 and to lay the foundation for a future of prosperity and greatness.

The celebration of Jamaica 50 is a moment in history which belongs equally to each and every Jamaican here and abroad. It cannot and must not be captured by the discredited forces of political partisanship, the said forces that have left the past 50 years in ruins, save for the heroic work of our longsuffering patriots and the awesome talent of many.

We fear that the celebrations could serve to divide rather than unite our fledgling country.

Miss Hanna has informed the nation that just under half of the $50 million allocated to Jamaica 50 has been spent and in a manner warranting special attention from the Auditor General's Department. Miss Olivia 'Babsy' Grange, her predecessor in the job, has hit back that the Government was being "vindictive" and that there was no wrongdoing in the spending of the money.

On August 12, last year in this very space, we wrote the following about the 50th anniversary celebrations: "We sincerely hope that the commemoration activities will reflect what is truly best and beautiful about Jamaicans. To ensure this, we cannot take the tribalist approach, again another of the unfortunate 'talents' that we have perfected to our great detriment since 1962.

"Let us be the first to admit that the non-politically partisan approach will be difficult to achieve and will test our very mettle...And so, we had better start thinking through how we are going to unite our nation around the need to undertake this national introspection, retrospection and mapping of the way forward.

"Otherwise, we will have to put away any thought of using next year as the catalyst for a new Jamaica as some of us are advocating.

Any cursory analysis of how we have managed since 1962 will show that we are still finding it hard to govern ourselves and our politics have not always helped."

We are getting the uneasy feeling that these words are becoming prophetic. Yet, it is here that we see a glorious opportunity for Miss Hanna to demonstrate what she is truly worth and what she offers as part of our post-Independent leadership. Let the public servants do what they must in an audit, and let the chips fall where they may. But Miss Hanna must be the centripetal force of Jamaican unity.

She will not get another opportunity like this.