WANT to see a massive explosion? Line up the following. The Palisadoes road project (worth US$65.5 million) being carried out by China Harbour Engineering, as part of the largest ever roadworks programme in the history of this country, a JLP government eager to move away from being judged solely on its atrocious handling of the extradition of Jamaica’s biggest don; a PNP Opposition intent on taking back power at any means; a country weaned on the nasty politics of both the PNP and the JLP; and garrison areas devoid of human and infrastructural development.

Cut the fuse a little shorter. Criminal elements in the East Kingston and Port Royal constituency, believing that they “own” any project east of Mountain View Avenue, their insistence that with guns and threats of death they can extort from the project at will, and a people willing to believe only what meshes with their politics biases.

As complement to the US$400-million Jamaica Development Infrastructural Programme (JDIP), the Palisadoes Shoreline and Rehabilitation Works aims to raise the road level of the two-and-a-half-mile strip of road from the Harbour View roundabout to the Norman Manley Airport. Aftermaths of hurricanes have told us that the main point of entry and exit of our people and visitors must maintain its structural integrity through all types of weather.

Chinese Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), the company assigned as general contractor, has proved itself to be at the forefront of international entities who are engineering specialists in massive and challenging projects. While the company has sub-contracted much of the work to the Jamaican A-1 construction company, YP Seaton and Associates, based on the very presence of many Chinese nationals on the site, it seems obvious that there are two operations working in tandem with each other.

My efforts to contact Mr YP Seaton have been unsuccessful so far. I wanted to determine, in terms of the physical work, how much is CHEC and how much is YP Seaton. I am certain that we will talk soon.

Much has blown up in the last few days, and if calm occurs under the same conditions as existed recently, it will be a tenuous one.

In the days before a certain Kingston businessman found the climate of South Florida more to his liking than those grimy, poverty-ridden communities to the opposite side of West Kingston, all work east of Mountain View Avenue fell under his control, and allied as he was to the PNP, he was as much courted by PNP MPs as he was feared by them.

At the funeral of PNP don, Willie Haggart, in 2001, he was there along with those who were more comfortable conversing with him behind closed doors. Unlike many, he shed little tears for the dead body of the Arnett Gardens strongman.

I know this because years ago I was at his office drinking Remy Martin when a well-known politician walked in. Seeing me there, and not expecting me, he turned about two shades lighter than his normal colour. The ever dapper gentleman enjoyed the happening.

But from those days there existed the post of “liason officer” on a worksite. In an ideal situation (that address north of Jupiter) a liason officer maintains a link between a huge government work project and the citizens’ associations of the proximate communities.

In the Palisadoes project, those calling themselves “liason officers” are little more than thugs without a leader. Was the project placed in, say, west of Mountain View, the thugs would crawl out of the woodwork in Mountain View Avenue and sections of “Dunkirk”. If the project was further west, in the days of “Prezi”, it would fall under his “protection” and the “liason officers” would be thugs from Tivoli Gardens.

In the Palisadoes project these thugs crawl out from Rockfort, the place of my birth. It is typical that a fake “liason officer”, being fully versed in the money value of the project, via liason with his political connections would demand from a huge site $250,000 per month. If three show up, with guns and a small militia, that would be $750,000 per month, tax free. For being a parasite!

In addition, these criminals turn in on their own and demand from the workers on the site as much as 10 per cent of their salary. At the threat of the gun, most workers pay and keep their mouths shut. In the worst of cases, the liaison officers of this type dictate to the project managers who and how many are employed on the site. My investigations have not revealed that that particular problem obtains on the Palisadoes project, however.

It is to our utter shame that the sort of politics practised in this county is one where, upfront, nice words are spoken and open commitments to decency and civility are issued, while behind closed doors criminality is planned and unleashed.

Frankly, based on how our politics is practised, I believe that it would suit the Opposition PNP, who “owns” the constituency, to sit aside and see the project go completely downhill. The JDIP and the Palisadoes project can yield only positives for the ruling JLP. Why would the PNP want that to happen?

China Harbour Engineering and the country China are, whether we like it or not, our proximate lifelines. CHEC personnel must be having private jokes among themselves, saying how uncivilised we are. They are, of course, not that naïve to the social realities of their own country and the ones existing right here.

Minister Mike Henry must demand that the army move in with the same resolve as it did over a year ago in another community, minus the body count, to rid the project of these criminals. Many people want to talk about what is happening, but they are very afraid.

MP Joe Hibbert; East Kingston MP, the PNP’s Phillip Paulwell; Minister Mike Henry and Peace Management boss, Herro Blair, need to sit with each other and give a commitment to CHEC and YP Seaton that the much-needed project will continue without incident.

That commitment, especially from the PNP representatives in Rockfort must be seen as a commitment to Jamaica.

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