IN D grade horror movies, most of us who are suckers for fluff on the silver screen are familiar with the wolf silhouetted against the glow of a moonlit sky, his mouth raised to the heavens and howling once, twice, three times.

After that, the script writes itself. A man and his girl exiting his car and headed for a park bench overlooking a tranquil bay. It is the evening and they are in love. They sit, talk, play foolish mind games with each other and laugh a lot. It is obvious that they are enjoying each other’s company.

From a nearby bush there is a swishing sound and they are both suddenly drawn to it. As they turn, they see it. The girl screams, and the camera pans towards her, closes in and records her open mouth, the horror of her repeated shrieks and the final glare of death as she is attacked and devoured by a beast unknown. In the next scene, it turns out that the man survived but was bitten. By the beast. The ultimate wolf.

In time, he becomes a werewolf, howling at the moon, growing strange, feral parts in the darkness, roaming by the edge of the forest and desiring human flesh.

This must not be construed as me making out the contractor general as some sort of other-worldy creature simply out to make weird and scary noises while crouching menacingly and blocking our entry to the factory door.

As the overseer of Government’s contractual processes, the present contractor general, Greg Christie, has covered himself in the cloth of integrity, tenacity, fearlessness and a constant willingness to dot all I’s and cross all T’s.

Many of us cannot recall a public servant of such calibre, but some of us remember Ted Ogilvie, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Construction during the years when the PNP formed the Government.

Ogilvie, a professional civil servant, conducted an internal investigation and found out that cheques were being drawn without any certification on the McGregor Gully project.

As a result, he put a stop to the project. The upshot was that he came under severe political pressure. However, he remained resolute.

At the time, two well-known PNP activists were involved in the project. They were reported to have gone to the ministry and issued threats about what would happen if they didn’t get their payments.

Ogilvie didn’t budge, and protected his officers by saying: “Let them know you no longer have anything to do with the matter. If they have any questions, I’m the only person who can answer.”

One day, after having lunch at home, as was his routine, Ogilvie was going back to his car and got no further than his gate.

Two men shot him dead.

The police investigations were stymied, but public pressure eventually led them to charge the two PNP activists who were making money from the McGregor Gully project.

However, by that time they had been whisked off to Cuba, and there is evidence that they were assisted in doing so through official diplomatic channels.

They stayed in Cuba for years, and it wasn’t until the PNP returned to power in 1989 that they came back to Jamaica.

Public pressure was again placed on the authorities, based on the fact that they were back in Jamaica and there were warrants out for their arrest.

Eventually, both men were arrested and charged with murder. However, after coming up for mention a few times, the case finally collapsed after it was discovered that the case file was missing.

I mention this for a few reasons. One, I was living in Havendale when Ted Ogilvie, who was living there too, was murdered at Lydia Drive. Two, many clean public servants in key positions are usually faced with on-the-job, life-changing decisions. Most opt to keep life and limb intact by towing the line.

Three, Greg Christie is regularly threatened and, to the best of my knowledge, he has never buckled.

Christie’s dim view of China Harbour

I hold no brief for any transnational that is operating or has ever operated in Jamaica.

The fact is, Jamaica is broke or, at the very least, has a broken system. Outside of the seeming perfection of our democratic, once-every-five-year-vote, freedom of the media, personal expression and movement, Jamaica is highly corrupt and it is its acceptance of corruption at all levels more than the fact of its existence that is really endemic.

For this reason, it is not just politically correct to accept that transnational entities have two separate budgets while operating in foreign countries with lax laws, underdevelopment and eager, smiling politicians/public servants, but that they would be stupid not to have the under-the-table budget.

Some are of the view that the contractor general’s citing of the JDIP involving China Harbour and possible corruption at a time last year, when the then ruling JLP Administration was barely hanging on to electoral possibilities, was the final nail in the JLP’s coffin.

In a country where the bar for perception of corruption is set higher for the JLP than the PNP, the people’s darling, the JLP certainly did not need its poor handling of the matter to endear it to the people.

The JLP eventually lost the election but, to the contractor general’s credit, he did not ease up. As much as I believe he was swatting at windmills, at times he appeared to be completely oblivious to the need to move ahead with the development of projects in a country that is noted for stalling, stymieing and inventing village tyrants who sit at desks, seeking more importance than is due to them.

To me, especially where it related to China Harbour, the contractor general was too taken up in chasing duppies where no such spectres existed.

Under the new PNP Administration, the contractor general has been pretty much neutered, possibly because it was under the same principals in the last PNP Administration that the contractor general (CG) was appointed. I do not mean that he has ceded power in the face of the PNP Administration, only that, in the Ministry of Transport and Works appointing an Independent Oversight Panel (IOP) to deal directly with three big projects, two of which involve China Harbour, the PNP Administration is viewing the CG as more of a necessary bother than any real impediment to project implementation.

The contractor general has complained that his office is not getting the co-operation and necessary timely documentation from the IOP. In his latest release he has highlighted a number of issues relating to China Harbour and its parent China Communications Construction Company (CCCC).

This reminds me of a bitter divorce case where one person who was once deeply in love with the other now finds it convenient to dig up a past relationship which has absolutely nothing to do with the proximate relationship.

Has the CG identified one compelling bit of evidence or even a sliver of proven corruption on the part of China Harbour’s operation in Jamaica to render it unworthy of operating in Jamaica?

I have seen long letters and impressive legalese but where is the meat and gravy?

A bark, yes, and, more important, a bite, but the long and consistent howling at the moon is much more than a bother.

It is annoying.

observemark@gmail.com