JUST when Prime Minister Bruce Golding thought that it was safe to walk in public again, former Commissioner of Police, Rear Admiral Hardley Lewin broadsides him in an interview and sends him back into hiding.

What must poor Mr Golding do?

In a recent, revealing interview with CVM’s award-winning journalist Garfield Burford, Mr Lewin said that after he was informed by the Americans that they would be making an official request for the extradition of Christopher “Dudus” Coke the following day, he immediately informed the security minister, Dwight Nelson.

According to Lewin, “Mr Nelson turned white”, indicating either shock, fear or both. As we all know Minister Nelson is dark-skinned, so for his face to turn white a lot of blood must have drained from it. Pity Mr Lewin didn’t have a camera on hand. Clovis would have done wonders with such a picture.

The narrative, according to Mr Lewin, continued. The security minister called the prime minister and told him that an official extradition request would come the following day for a well-known member of his constituency. Minister Nelson suggested the PM have immediate consultation with the commissioner.

Mr Lewin was surprised that the security minister did not accompany him to see the PM. But then came the shocker. According to Mr Lewin, in the 15 minutes it took him to drive to where the prime minister was and brief him, Dudus was informed and immediately retreated to the ‘safe’ haven of Tivoli Gardens.

True to form, Minister Nelson came out firing and has heavily criticised the former commissioner. Additionally, as the member of the administration pushing Whistle-Blower legislation, the security minister suddenly wants to use the Official Secrets Act to get Lewin to keep his mouth closed. Who should we believe?

According to Hardley Lewin, he has lost respect for the prime minister because truth and honour do not reside where the prime minister lives.

In any war of words between Mr Lewin and Minister Nelson over the Dudus affair, it is easy to disbelieve anything the minister says. In a war of words between Mr Lewin and the prime minister, the latter could not win, because he has proven that he cannot be trusted with the truth in the Dudus affair.

The implications of Mr Lewin’s accusations are stunning. According to Lewin, there was a serious breach in the procedures relating to the extradition request for Dudus. If he is to be believed — we have not been presented with any reasons to disbelieve him — who was it that tipped off Dudus?

It is highly unlikely that it was Lewin himself, who had in 2005 correctly dubbed Tivoli Gardens the ‘mother of all garrisons’. From that time, there would have been no love lost between the no-nonsense Lewin and the JLP.

If it was not Lewin who tipped off Dudus, that leaves two players: Minister Nelson and the prime minister.

Certainly we have seen how the prime minister went out on a limb to bat for Dudus and to slow down his extradition. We saw the pressures put on the PM to act, and we also saw the spineless members of his Senate endorsing his refusal to resign at a time when, by the prime minister’s own admission, he had been carrying the nation wide and playing dangerous games with the truth.

It is noteworthy that Minister Nelson is an important part of that spineless group of senators.

So, who should we believe? I am quite sure whose side I am on in this matter, which some of us just wish would disappear into thin air. Frankly, I have given up calling on the prime minister to resign because I know that at this time it is a requirement that he be made a fixture in Jamaica House… for now.

At the same time, I congratulate Rear Admiral Lewin for the simple reason that too many times our high officials resign in a rush, then go about their business and never tell the people of this country the real deal behind the ‘resignations’. Lewin has done more than that, and I am certain that he can back up every word he has uttered.

The very fact that Tivoli began to erect barricades even before the prime minister addressed the nation, with a sham apology, tells us that at every stage, some high official in the JLP or the Government had been informing their ‘president’ of the details of the extradition process.

Who do we believe? We would like to believe that minister Nelson is telling the truth, but where is the hard evidence that truth and honour have been the hallmark of this Government since the extradition request arrived in August 2009?

We have looked and searched, but Mr Lewin is more credible.

What if Dudus says nothing?

It is the hope of many in Jamaica that when Dudus begins to negotiate with US prosecutors he will cut a deal that will allow him a lesser sentence.

According to this view, the society needs to flush the criminal nexus between politics and donmanship from its system, and Dudus talking will be the start of that process. There is also a view which speaks to Dudus being the ‘big fish’ to the Americans, therefore they might not be interested in anything he has to say about what we believe was his close working relationship with those in high positions in politics and the police force.

One reader, a well-known, highly successful businessman and a friend of mine, said, “Let me suggest that our judgement in the matter/speculation of what Dudus may or may not say is clouded by our own perspective as to the relative importance to the USA of corrupt persons or crime bosses in Jamaica. To us Jamaicans, a cabinet minister or well-known high-profile businessman is a more important catch that an inner-city don. To the USA, on the other hand, it’s not about cleaning up the politics in Jamaica (although that may occur as a consequence), it’s about intercepting/eliminating drugs entering and being distributed in the USA.

“Their hierarchy therefore puts Dudus on top, and should a few ministers/businessmen be netted in the process, that’s collateral, fodder for the press and excitement — perhaps even good, for all of us Jamaicans. To the USA, however, they might prefer to use such information on our politicians, to guarantee the “right” votes in the UN and other such bodies, as IT’S THE USA’S INTEREST THAT THEY SEEK TO PROTECT (Bin Laden once fought on the side of the USA).

“In any event, with 40 charges lined up against Dudus, for which it will take an estimated two months to disclose the ‘discovery’ to the defence, I suspect that there is little Dudus can reveal about local co-conspirators that they don’t already know. Plea bargaining has more to do with using a relatively smaller fish to get the big fish. To them Dudus IS the big fish here. He answers to no man, as far as we know. To my naive mind, therefore, his bargaining ‘chip’, if he has one, will have more to do with outside of Jamaica (Colombia, Haiti, the USA organisation) than within.”

That is a line of reasoning that many of us have not yet reached. Let us ‘satisfy’ ourselves with the embarrassing knowledge that without the US input, the JLP would not have acted and it would have been business as usual. The JLP has claimed proactivity in many areas, where it was sheer pressure that got it to act. The administration has also been earning praises from many quarters where no such praise is merited.

From the Americans it is simple diplomacy. The Americans have got the man they want so their interests have been satisfied. To fully connect the dots, the Americans must also bring back Golding into their ‘good books’.

Easier Access to Land Titles

According to Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Christopher Tufton, there are about 230,000 farmers in Jamaica. I am certain that just among the farming population alone, there are thousands who have settled on land for two, three generations but have no titles for those parcels of land.

When the Land Administration and Management Programme (LAMP) was launched by the previous administration in 2000, there would have been many in the wider population who would have had high praises for its pilot project, launched in St Catherine.

For those who don’t know, LAMP was established to allow persons to obtain their land titles and update existing titles quickly and easily. I knew persons at the time who jumped at the opportunity to formalise their arrangements and attain a land title in St Catherine. In 2005 teams moved into other areas to do research.

Recently an announcement was made by State Minister Robert ‘Bobby’ Montague that the project was being expanded into six other parishes. While the previous PNP administration should be congratulated for instituting this programmme, congrats are also in order for the present administration for picking up where the PNP left off and expanding the programme.

Through a contract signed this year with one of the largest international land surveying and cadastral mapping companies, the Korea Cadastral Survey Corporation, with an investment of US$2 million and its Jamaican partner, Geoland Title Limited headed by Garfield Knight, the programme is to be accelerated across all parishes.

Just as we condemn our high officials when they make a royal muck of the affairs mandated to them, so should we also commend minister Montague for putting together a public/private sector-foreign investor partnership that will benefit many people. When I spoke with the minister last Thursday he said, “The Government recognises that the procedures necessary for obtaining a title have been cumbersome and time consuming, and that costs have been prohibitive for most Jamaicans. If one should contract the services of a lawyer in this connection, one would be looking at $300,000 to $400,000. Which poor person can afford that fee?”

The objective of LAMP is to provide a mechanism to enable landowners to have security of tenure by obtaining a certificate of title. Persons who go through LAMP will find it an extremely easy process with stamp duties and transfer taxes waived and several other fees reduced. The minister also said, “I expect that the range of fees will be anywhere between $30,000 to $40,000, about 10 per cent of what it would cost to use a lawyer.”

This is more than great stuff for the hundreds, possibly thousands of people who live on untitled land. It is actually estimated that less than 20 per cent of landowners have a certificate of title, which is the best proof of legal ownership of land in Jamaica. Plus, a landowner who has no certificate of title is denied access to basic financial services. Without collateral, credit is difficult to obtain and the person is left stuck in a rut.

In my opinion, this represents a revolutionary, new model for the programme as it is being financed by private investment from the Korean company, which will also see the establishment of customer service offices and the mobilisation of legal and land surveying teams. “Even in the common cases where siblings have split up lands that they are living on left to them by their parents, LAMP will survey these parcels of land and present them with official subdivisions and titles,” Montague said.

A recent launch in St Elizabeth unveiled phase II of the programme, which will cover the parishes of St Elizabeth, Manchester and Clarendon. I have no doubt that the people in these areas will take advantage of the process and become registered landowners, because the one thing we should have learned from our British ‘masters’ is that landownership is essential to wealth creation.

The PNP has messed this one up

As expected in our politics where an exercise of conscience must always give way to towing the party line, the PNP lost out on trying to secure no-confidence motions in both the Lower and Upper House.

In trying to censure Golding, the votes went as predicted. In attempting to haul the disappointing Dorothy Lightbourne, our attorney general, across the coals, one didn’t need an obeah man from St Thomas to arrange the results.

Puffed up and ‘vexed to hell’ that not enough attention was being paid to its efforts, the PNP could not summon up the national decency and show a responsible face by shucking off its domestic fights with the governing administration long enough to attend the opening ceremony of the Caricom Heads of Government meeting in MoBay.

This is what happens when an administration has held power for too long. It has spent too much time campaigning and winning elections that now, three years after losing power, it finds that it has become extremely difficult for it show a grander regional outlook as an opposition party and separate that from its domestic struggles.

It is time for the PNP to agree that its decision not to attend the opening ceremony probably because ‘Golding would a did di deh’ is a schoolboy tactic. I am certain that many of the heads of government attending had private laughs among themselves with the PNP being the butt of the jokes.

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