As Fate would have it, both the ruling Jamaica Labour Party and the Opposition People’s National Party have Achilles heels going into the next general election, constitutionally due in September 2012. While the Dudus/Manatt affair remains an albatross around the neck of the Bruce Golding-led JLP that may well take it to the depths of defeat, the Finsac debacle is being seen as piercing the usually thick armour of the PNP, thus exposing it to a fatal wound with respect to its ambitions of returning to Jamaica House after a five -year respite.

Both issues have much national import which should not be dismissed, as we as a nation are often wont to do, as yet another nine-day wonder. Unfortunately, as a recent research poll has found, a large percentage of Jamaicans primarily see such issues in a partisan framework. So, concerning Finsac, the PNP supporters for the most part will dismiss the harsh criticisms levelled at its former Finance Minister Dr Omar Davies, who is currently the spokesperson for that portfolio. In the meantime, JLP supporters are expected to see the Dudus/Manatt affair as a mere distraction that should be buried under the carpet.

Well, both the PNP and JLP are wrong in their respective stances. A former Cabinet Minister and a high-profile PNP stalwart, Dr Karl Blythe, dropped a bombshell when he recently declared publicly that his party should take full responsibility for the Finsac fiasco and should therefore apologise to the victims. Readers will recall that Dr Blythe was the man whom renowned talk-show host Wilmot “Mutty” Perkins dubbed “Father Teresa”, likening him to that inimitable nun Mother Teresa and thus conferring sainthood on him, when he asserted that he had never told a lie in his life, never drank white rum or cussed a bad word. Should his public reprimand of his party seem merely as a case of sour grapes steeped in bitterness? The jury is out!

Whichever spectacles one chooses to wear with orange or green lenses, it is only fair to conclude that mistakes were made not just by some banks and insurance companies that became too involved in speculative ventures outside of their core business as well as business owners and managers who overexposed themselves, but by the Michael Manley/PJ Patterson administrations which ill-advisedly took the route of liberalisation, without fully understanding market forces. As a result, many indigenous businesses went under and have never recovered. I recall sitting in a room with some 25 black entrepreneurs during 1997 when I was president of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who all looked lost, hopeless, and some with tear-filled eyes, asking me to use my good office to get an audience with Dr Vin Lawrence who they thought could get the ears of Prime Minister PJ Patterson and Finance Minister Dr Omar Davies in order to deal with their plight. My efforts were in vain. I recall one PNP operative telling me that “the whole a dem fi suffer cause dem use the borrowed money to buy expensive cars, have two or three girlfriends well taken care of and live like their is no tomorrow…”

While some of that may be true, it has been well recorded that an entire new breed of black entrepreneurs was wiped out. I felt it deeply then and it was that scene of socio-economic devastation among my black brothers and sisters under a black prime minister that led me to resign as chamber president that same year and I decided at the last minute to run for the Edward Seaga-led JLP. That is not to say that Patterson and Davies did not have good intentions, but something went wrong and for some of that wrong they must take the blame and seek reconciliation. Indeed, it was only during the 1990s that I saw so many black entrepreneurs and young black professionals being so upwardly mobile. Now under Bruce Golding, there has been a sharp reverse with only one set of Jamaicans taking over the commanding heights of the economy and society.

In the case of the JLP, what unfolded during the Dudus/Manatt Commission of Enquiry clearly showed that there was a conspiratorial commingling between the legislative and executive arms of government as well as a viral invasion of the party into the Golding administration. Apart from the fact that scores of lives were lost during the Tivoli incursion, many of them innocent victims of state terrorism, it is fair to assume that some government officials lied outright to the people of Jamaica and there was undoubtedly a web of deception as a result of covert as well as overt attempts to stymie the Christopher “Dudus” Coke extradition process. Even as we await the report from the commissioners led by Queen’s Counsel Émil George, many Jamaicans from all walks of life have already drawn their own conclusions, one of which is the predominant view that Prime Minister Bruce Golding has a serious credibility problem. With this baggage, can he therefore remain at the helm of the JLP and ultimately lead the Jamaican nation? The jury is also out!

Any dispassionate look at the Finsac debacle and the Manatt/Dudus affair can only force well-thinking Jamaicans to come to the conclusion that this is a classic case of “no better herring, no better barrel”. Here is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for patriotic Jamaicans both at home and abroad to say enough is enough. Those big donors as well as civil society, the church, the media and influential organisations such as the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica and the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce must speak with one voice and demand that both the JLP and the PNP get their acts together.

Hopefully, both the Finsac and Manatt/Dudus Commissions of Enquiry will reveal not just the truth but will help to point the way forward in terms of getting this nation to heal and move on. For now, it must be understood by both Bruce Golding and Portia Simpson Miller that morality and good economic management are not mutually exclusive. They must go hand in hand in the quest for effective governance.

lloydbsmith@hotmail.com