Dear Editor,

It is all well and good for former Prime Minister P J Patterson to be pontificating at this time about governance and morality and the standards to which politicians should be held. What I would like to know, however, is whether any of the journalists present at his interview asked him about the various scandals under his administration, and what his responses were to each.

I would like to know if after he returned, following the sordid Shell waiver affair with which he was embroiled, he demanded or accepted the resignation of any of his ministers, as scandals and allegations of ministerial negligence, corruption and massive cost ove-runs on projects proliferated?

What did he do about the increase in crime by some 400 per cent and the ravages wrought by unemployment, poverty and the Finsac debacle. And to think, while the world economy was in boom, growing 5 per cent on average each year during Patterson’s tenure, Jamaica’s economy merely hobbled along with growth out-turn ranging from decline to anaemic growth at best.

I would like to know how, as the former head of an administration proliferated with questions of fiscal indiscipline and other undesirables, like the ‘eat-a-food’ mentality and handouts, Patterson now expects to be taken seriously. Although he promulgated a values and attitudes programme in 1994, it was no more than another failed PNP initiative; a fanciful announcement void of the effective and strategic implementation that would secure its success.

I would also really like to know how Mr Patterson views his role in the various losses of time, money and procedural standards visited on this country by his protege Minister Phillip Paulwell. The phrase “youthful exuberance” to excuse a loss of almost $200m and a failure to produce 40,000 promised jobs, rings loud but hollow in the ears of Jamaican taxpayers who have borne the burden of several subsequent failures by Paulwell. Lest we forget, instead of meting out sanctions to his errant minister as per the Westminster system, Prime Minister Patterson, at the time, simply dismissed the ‘foul-up’. As the youthful exuberance phrase did then, Patterson’s current calls for good governance rings loud and hollow as there is no moral authority behind it.

Marlon Morgan

Deputy Opposition Spokesman on Agriculture

marlonandremorgan@gmail.com