ONE day a pack of wolves invaded your pen of goats and went about in wild abandon to rip the flesh from the animals even while they were still alive. Some they left-half devoured, others they dragged away after they were partly sated.

Now a different set of wolves are at the gate of the well-fortified pen. You are at the gate with the alpha wolf and he is trying to make out a case that his pack is not like the set that had created mayhem among your goats. He makes out a most compelling case that all he and his pack want to do is enter the pen, admire your goats and, who knows, maybe even develop ideas to help you fatten the animals and bring them to market quicker.

In such an instance it is not just healthy but highly recommended that the word ‘doubt’ guide your next decisions.

As the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and other entities head for a collision course with the People’s National Party (PNP) Government over the National Housing Trust (NHT) buy-out of Lennie Little-White’s Outameni heritage attraction, a few things come to mind, some obvious, and others not so readily revealed.

The first not-so-obvious one is that any entrepreneur who intends to approach a commercial lending institution for major funding must know that the burden of proof is on him to prove the project’s bankability to the institution. While all the necessary projected earnings must be attached to the general brief, oftentimes credible market research is required by the bank.

In the case of the Outameni attraction, which has never made money from day one, one assumes that no such research was in place or, if is was, it was faulty and sent Little-White and the bank wide. So, while we laud the resourcefulness of our entrepreneurs and business people, even the most adventuresome risk-taker would know that starting a business on a ‘build-it-and-they-will-come’ basis is like betting on the horses, especially where less than solid management seemed to have been a part of the overall continued non-viability of Outameni.

Among the very obvious is that the well-circulated letter of July 16, 2013, where Little-White sets out his major concerns over the sale and the transition to full ownership by the NHT. He says: “It is very important that your minister, who is the prime minister, and other members of the Government, who wanted the attraction to be a diamond in the crown of our national heritage sites, be not misled by the content of your letter. To ensure that this does not happen, and to protect my integrity, I will be sending a copy of this letter and yours plus all other correspondence, starting with the offer letter to your chairman, dated November 7, 2012, to the prime minister and other key persons in the government…”

With the prime minister having said that the first time she heard about the sale and the controversy was when she heard about it in the press, this seemed to have been the smoking gun that the JLP quite reasonably thought it had. With Little-White immediately responding by saying he did not follow through on his intention, the first thing that jumps out at me, if we accept Little-White’s word, is that something else happened immediately after that letter was written to guarantee that his integrity was kept intact and cast in stone.

If we disbelieve him, and many in the JLP do, and if we should accept that the JLP is on sound ground, then the implications are frightening.

For those of us who have been around the block more than a few times, we accept that the art of politics is point-scoring, while making it seem that no matter how likely it is that a position is grounded in fiction, an argument can be made to make it seem that a more noble cause is at play. The more skilled and wily a politician may be, the better he is at it.

If we can recall, no one in the private sector was interested in Outameni when Little-White was at his wits’ end trying to offload it and with his creditors pressuring him. And yet Percival LaTouche, NHT board member, PNP activist, and a man well-known for engaging his mouth before having it linked to another organ just a tad northwards of that spot was telling us last week that the Outameni investment was probably the best investment the NHT has ever made.

By what reading of the business tea leaves did he come to that conclusion, or it was just the usual stuff that someone of a specific political nature was directed to say?

We know that the NHT is flush with cash, and with the absence of any new saleable innovations in cheaper building materials and technology, about 80 per cent of NHT contributors will never be able to afford the mortgage payments on a standard business solution. So, at some stage, the NHT has to wisely invest a significant part of its cash. Considering that the funds are held in trust for the contributors, must I believe that the NHT purchasing a going concern, like Outameni, can be in any way considered a wise investment?

Unless, of course, the idea is for the NHT to accept that any business with the concept of ‘heritage’ and ‘tainos, heroes, slavery past and sports heroes’ is somehow a social good that is needed and, therefore, it should not be subjected to foolish ideals like sound management and making profits.

In a Supreme Court matter held in the latter part of 2012 when Little-White’s defence against his creditors, Capital and Credit Merchant Bank (CCMB), was that he had not been properly served, a part of paragraph 33 cuts deeply into the credibility of what Little-White had presented to the Court.

“…On the other hand, I was not impressed with the demeanour of either Little-White or Ms Richards. I formed the impression that Little-White was being evasive, particularly when he spoke of how mail reached him, of Ms Ryman… and further, his reasons for stating why the documents were not brought to the attention of Ms Ryman are not credible.

“…In my judgment, Mr Little-White gave his evidence denying his presence in the office in an attempt to… avoid his and the second defendant’s not inconsiderable liability and indebtedness to CCMB.”

After many thousands of business entities collapsed as a direct result of a “high interest rate, mopping up liquidity” — PNP government policy of the mid-1990s which led to FINSAC being formed — the clock on the interest rates on their liabilities has never stopped. One man I know borrowed $5 million. At his untimely death that amount had skyrocketed to $105 million!

Little-White had no such problems. Maybe if a lot of those black-owned businesses knew exactly where to make their sales pitch, they too would have said, as Little-White said in his letter: “I am very aware that the National Housing Trust has made a great sacrifice to purchase the property and for this I will be forever grateful.”

observemark@gmail.com