A few weeks ago, I was invited to a private, family gathering at a well-known Cabinet minister’s home. The minister and I have had ‘tussles’ in previous years, but I have found him to be a straight talker and not one to hold on to any ill will for long. While there I found myself seated at a table with two other senior government ministers.

Obviously it was not a time to discuss government policy or engage in friendly banter about the Opposition PNP. I was dressed in faded blue jeans and striped T-shirt and my attire was reflective of my mood. Food was available, buffet style, and a tended bar was open. I saw an enjoyable Sunday afternoon ahead of me.

At some stage of the brief conversation I had with the two Cabinet ministers, the matter of newspaper columnists and politicians came up. Both ministers were fully agreed that they suffered deep hurt when columnists got it wrong, that is, misrepresented them.

Hours later, as I did a dance (or a jig) with a young lady from the RJR Communications Group, I began to think of what the senior ministers had said and why a few of the other ministers present were avoiding me like the plague. What a time to think of that?

Could the quality of the communication be a part of the problem?

Whenever politicians are in opposition they are quite eager to bare all, especially any dirt they can pick up in the hope that the columnist will shovel it onto the ruling administration. They have all of the correct answers to the nation’s ills. Then power comes and with it a radical transformation.

It is similar to the poor, underemployed man who tells you, “If mi win $400 million inna di Super Lotto, mi nah change nutten ’bout mi life”. Foolish man; foolish you for believing him. Should he win, you never see him again. He is either in the psychiatric ward, or the cardiac unit, or in hiding while stressed out by the hundreds of relatives he never knew he had, who secretly ‘loved’ him for many years.

It is a most distressing thing to me whenever a politician says to me, “I have something to tell you but you cannot use it.” To me that is code for, “Use it skilfully, don’t call my name, but check it out before you do because I may be lying to suit my own, narrow purposes.”

While in opposition it is standard that all political parties promise ‘openness’ should they be elected. Hogwash! Party politics and governments are fraternal orders and, by their very nature, are secretive bodies. The big question is, if they purport to represent all the people, and it is physically impossible for them to whisper individually in each person’s ears, why not just be candid and express the mandate from a loud, open platform?

It seems to me that the objectives of politicians in power bear little resemblance to the treacle promised while on the campaign trail. Why is this so? To me, the best explanation can only be that politics and a large part of the operations of government surround the secret cutting of deals to benefit a select few.

Taken to its extreme, it is frightening, but it could mean that political parties are basically special interest groups with the objective of raiding the public purse through the special allocation of jobs, or more likely, handing money resources to contractors, all for the benefit of those in the group. In this shady arrangement the people and the country are secondary.

In an underdeveloped country like Jamaica other special interest groups in the corporate world have to play ball because of the blackmail of power that hangs over them. So for their survival (and the sake of their shareholders) they are forced to play ‘footsie’, especially if a reminder of campaign donations must be invoked at every encounter.

Other special interest groups, like those who occupy our sub-cultural politics — criminal dons, money launderers and powerful rogue cops — play along and, after many years of this, national development is stalled in many areas because the main objective was always to rape the State to fill the bellies of those involved and create a money-filled future for those directly connected to the grand scam called ‘governance’.

Degrees of corruption

When Trafigura Beheer — a Dutch company that was contracted by the Government of Jamaica to lift Nigerian oil and sell it on the open market — made electronic transfers of $31 million to a bank account named CCOC Association in the latter part of 2006, it opened a can of worms for the then PNP Government.

For the benefit of those who came in late, CCOC stands for Colin Campbell Our Candidate. The account was set up for the specific purpose, one would imagine, of holding funds for Campbell as he ran as a candidate in elections. That is pretty standard business.

One assumes that at the time of the Trafigura transfers, because the matter was hush-hush, Campbell — who was general secretary of the PNP and minister of information in the Government — decided to utilise his CCOC Association to receive the Trafigura funds and not an account named People’s National Party or PNP. That’s the assumption, especially if we acknowledge that government and party politics enjoy an easy congruence with the concealment of certain actions.

Funds were then removed from the CCOC Association by Colin Campbell and lodged in SW Services Limited, which is an account bearing a strange resemblance to South West as in South West St Andrew constituency.

Again, for those who came in late, in August of 2006 Trafigura President Claude Dauphin had paid a visit to then Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, MP for South West St Andrew. Whatever was discussed in that courtesy call has not been made public, but when the fires were lit, Mrs Simpson Miller told the nation that Dauphin had stopped by at Jamaica House to personally congratulate her being a woman occupying the highest office in the land.

It is however quite possible that Mr Dauphin as head of Trafigura, a company then embroiled in many international breaches, simply wanted a face-to-face with the head of a Government who was in charge of allowing Trafigura to make easy money off Jamaica. We know that it would have been more than likely that Dauphin would extend best wishes to Simpson Miller in her future political endeavours.

The month after that meeting, Trafigura made its ‘donation’, or ‘gift’ as the PNP called it, while, under more pressure from the press in Jamaica and in its own country where such ‘donations’ are forbidden by law, Trafigura said the money was payment for a ‘commercial transaction’.

Manatt much worse than Trafigura

The common thread in the scandals which broke around Trafigura in 2006, in PNP time, and in Manatt in 2010 in JLP time is the ease with which politicians use lying as their first resort in any interface with their electors, the general public.

Outside of that, the Manatt scandal has bigger, negative implications for Jamaica and, it has damaged the Bruce Golding administration to a greater degree than the Trafigura shuffling did to the Portia Simpson Miller Government.

In 2006, it did take the PNP a day or two to agree around a common story, quite possibly because the truth would have been too devastating for the nation to imbibe. The PNP Government then gave up Colin Campbell as information minister. It took the then Prime Minister Simpson Miller fully two weeks before a direct response was forthcoming. Parliamentary discussions which followed saw brighter lights in the party stepping in to assist her as the pressure was turned up.

Eventually the PNP said it sent back the money, but to date, for all the goodness it claims as the JLP Government watches Golding in his self-imposed agony, no documented evidence of that returned money has ever been presented.

The Trafigura ‘donation’ to the PNP was most naturally seen by the public, not so much as a ‘kickback’ to the party which controlled the very Government that had contracted Trafigura and allowed it to be flush with easy money from ‘turd’ world leaders, but as appreciation for the continuation of such a benefit.

In the case of the JLP Government of Jamaica appointing Manatt to lobby on its behalf in an effort to circumvent or permanently stall the extradition of Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, the matter looms much larger. First, it involves an alleged drug and gunrunner. Second, Trafigura were themselves no angels.

That aside, the comparison fades thereafter. In the Manatt matter the Jamaican public saw a Jamaican prime minister seemingly going above and beyond the ‘call of duty’ to put his political present and future in jeopardy in assisting the stalling of an extradition of a key man in his political constituency.

While the stalling games were being played, and then the Manatt mystery broke, many in the country took it to mean that it was either that the prime minister was scared of ‘Dudus’, and so was Attorney General Dorothy Lightbourne, or, he just could not see a JLP faithful and a powerful man in Jamaican subculture like ‘Dudus’ go down without he, Golding, thumbing his nose at the big USA on behalf of him.

In addition, there were international repercussions for Jamaica, much of it unmeasurable. Said one Jamaican businessman who was Asia-based at the time, “I am a bit of a puzzle in Asia. I am usually the only black-skinned person that do what I do, and from time to time it is not unusual for someone to ask where are you from?

“That is when I have to take the position: I am proud of my people and my countrymen, but I too am ashamed of my Government, because it is not representative of my people. You see, Mark, I have to take this position, not only because it is true, but also Bruce Golding stay all the way in Jamaica and affect Jamaica business opportunities abroad. We are all collectively ashamed of this.

“Another Jamaican in New Zealand tells me he had serious problems closing a particular deal and only recently found out that it was because of the political issues back home. His prospect gave him clippings from the Internet of ‘Dudus’ and Bruce and asked him if he lived in Kingston, Jamaica. He said he was shocked that this person was keeping tabs on the Jamaican situation.

“That is when I asked him if his prospect was Japanese or Chinese and he answered in the affirmative. This is standard fare. Our Asian businessmen know all about their prospects long before a deal is struck.”

Another said, “There is no comparison between Manatt and Trafigura. In Trafigura, no one lied to the country.” Well, the PNP did lie about it because, to date, the position of Trafigura and the position of the PNP on the $31 million have not been squared.

He goes further: “In Trafigura, no one died, no money left the country, no alleged criminals were involved, no nation was held to ransom for one man, no one lied in an apology and then planned to go on an islandwide campaign to promote that lie.”

Was there a bigger story behind the Manatt appointment?

If, as the prime minister insists, he had authorised that the appointment of Manatt, Phelps and Phillips be done strictly on a JLP basis — although that sounds so convoluted — at which stage did Manatt get the impression that the firm was dealing with the Government?

Remember now, these are not so-called laymen, unsophisticated in the ways of the world and unfamiliar with the world of politics and the machinery of government.

This is a firm of lawyers who would want to personally vet the dotting of each ‘i’ and the crossing of each ‘t’. This is not Mass Tata and Big Foot Bullpuss in hill country exchanging yams for cabbage.

As rumour swirls about more indictments to be made and, possibly more extradition requests of ‘high profile’ Jamaicans, one is forced to question if the Manatt appointment went way beyond the primary objective of the stalling of the ‘Dudus’ extradition.

In any local representation to the folks at Manatt, the possibility of social unrest and long-term dislocation of the Jamaican economy would naturally be the main argument the JLP Government would have wanted pressed home to the US Government.

But, knowing that the prime minister was briefed on the ‘Dudus’ extradition to come at the moment he took power in 2007 (In Wignall’s World of July 25, I had written, ‘The question which needs to be asked is, did the US authorities inform the prime minister right after his win in September 2007 that they were preparing a case against ‘Dudus’?’) is it not likely that if there are other big fish to be had, he already knew of them and that the Manatt appointment had this as a main component?

If there is one positive to the entire ‘Dudus’ extradition and the Manatt appointment it is that in many areas, there are positives. The problem is, and this may seem strangely unpalatable to some in the JLP Cabinet, once it is sensed that a government is prepared to hold to a lie, the trust dissipates and all positives are simply accepted but never used to judge overall performance.

Unfortunately, perception of governmental performance is directly linked to the people’s judgement of the last wrong done to them. If the man at street level is prepared to overlook ‘a likkle lying, a likkle corruption’ then those of us on the front page may find that those on the back page are more malleable and willing to give in to skilfully put-together PR blitzes.

Time will tell.

observemark@gmail.com