THE dispute over the relocation of the Point Hill Post Office is a clear example of the disregard with which the State treats the people of this country.

On Monday of this week, residents from some of the 35 St Catherine districts served by the post office staged a second day of protest against the sudden relocation of the post office last Friday.

What was most egregious about the relocation was the way in which it was done. The door was simply closed and a notice posted to say that the facility has been removed to Lluidas Vale, about seven miles away.

The authorities held no meeting with the affected communities before the relocation, neither did they have the courtesy to at least use a town crier to inform the residents. Nothing. Just a sign, ironically addressed “to our valued customers”, posted on the day the post office was relocated.

One could not therefore fault the residents for voicing their disgust at the disrespectful treatment they received from people whose salaries are drawn from taxes.

What is just as unfortunate is that it required the residents’ protest and a report of that protest in the Observer and on Radio Jamaica for the Government to give the residents an explanation.

According to Minister Daryl Vaz, who has responsibility for information, the post office had to be relocated to Lluidas Vale after the owner of the building in which it was located served notice to vacate.

“On September 6, the regional inspector informed that the landlord had visited the premises with the intention to remove the roof and start repairs on the building,” Minister Vaz said at this week’s post-Cabinet press briefing.

Based on that, the decision, Mr Vaz said, was taken to relocate temporarily to the Lluidas Vale Post Office where there was sufficient space to handle mail from both entities.

A new location — the building that now houses the Point Hill Police Station — has been identified for the post office, he said, adding that that facility will become operational soon.

We doubt whether the residents would have protested had all this been explained to them in advance.

But that, unfortunately, is still a feature of how business is done in Jamaica. The State, in most instances, treats people as subjects, rather than citizens.

It’s a disturbing culture of disregard for the views and feelings of the working class and the poor that needs to be changed if we are to develop an atmosphere of trust and respect for the State, its officials and institutions.

There really was no need for this issue to have got to this point.

A good decision, PM

Prime Minister Bruce Golding is to be congratulated for making right a most iniquitous wrong done to Mrs Christine Alison Lindo.

Mr Golding, after reading the Sunday Observer account of how successive governments had neglected to acknowledge the role played by 83-year-old Mrs Lindo, formerly Mrs Eugene Mapletoft Poulle, in the writing of Jamaica’s National Anthem, has instructed that she be conferred with the Order of Distinction, the nation’s fifth highest honour.

Most fittingly, Mr Mapletoft Poulle, who passed in 1981, is to be awarded a Posthumous Commander of the Order of Distinction.

Though late in coming, the awards are well deserved, and hopefully, those who denied Mrs Lindo and her former husband the recognition they earned will feel a sense of shame.