In the midst of the Outameni controversy when the view was that major rules had been breached at the NHT in that entity purchasing a perennial loss-making venture, many of us thought the its Chairman Easton Douglas would have been fired by the prime minister.

The PNP was brutally honest with us in its constantly changing stories when the left hand had not the faintest idea what the right was doing. Knowing that the memories of its most ardent constituents — those in the electorate that vote for any party — cannot extend beyond nine days, the PNP circled the wagon, Easton Douglas even gave the impression that it was he alone who could decide his fate as NHT chairman and, of course, the PM knew little or, at best, she knew just enough of what her underlings thought she needed to know.

And so the PNP survived the NHT scandal.

The PNP has been brutally honest in its admiration and love for the IMF; the sort of love that only a prisoner can properly express for his warder. Finance Minister Dr Peter Phillips has been a sort of celebrated success there among those in the financial sector who recognise who is serving the food and who is sitting on the concrete bed behind heavy metal bars. Phillips has never pretended that there is fiscal space for any adventures that could put us on say, a 10-year growth path.

The PNP has been brutally honest in snaring us again, the willing lemmings, on its impressive idea of joined-up government, so well situated in its Progressive Agenda document as the route to socio-economic success in the years after it won in 2011.

Now that the PNP Cabinet has devolved to, or never did achieve life beyond a handful of ministers trying to do well while others were simply occupying positions of power and all which could flow from that, we need to offer the PNP our heartiest congratulations on selling us a six for a nine.

Lisa Hanna under fire

If matters taking place in St Ann South Eastern is any example of what a minister does when he/she has extra time on hand, then we must only conclude that the PNP, in promising us oxtail in the weeks leading up to the 2011 elections, knew all along that we must have known it was all one big joke. The oxtail would be provided, of course, but the real punch line in that joke is that we would not be invited to the table.

Certainly not for us who are only needed once every five years to provide the vehicles for transporting oxtail for the selected few.

A singeing press release by three of the four sitting PNP councillors in the constituency held since 2007 by Lisa Hanna, the minister of youth, begins: “A storm is brewing in the People’s National Party (PNP) stronghold of South East St Ann, where minister of youth and culture and Member of Parliament Lisa Hanna has come under fire from three of her four sitting councilors.”

When three out of four councillors take a sitting MP on, and one who is also a minister with close ties to the prime minister, one knows that that storm is simply churning and sucking up the heat to become a full-fledged hurricane.

I should first of all say that this is a matter that I have been following for some time now, and recently I spent a full day in the constituency talking with key people and rapping with constituents at street level. In fact, I am not at all surprised that it has developed into a storm.

One councillor, Lloyd Garrick, from the Moneague Division, said in the release: “She has personally maligned her councillors, throwing us under the bus and giving the people the impression that we have misappropriated money she has given us to spend. She told the media last week that $7 million was spent to upgrade the Moneague Post Office and she wasn’t happy with the work, and where she had to investigate the matter with the parish council. She added that because of an overrun she had to find an additional $2 million. This is a blatant lie. It is also a dangerous lie as well.” These are fighting words from a councillor loyal to the PNP and the constituency.

Another councillor, Lydia Richards, from the Bensonton Division, said very forthrightly: “If the MP doesn’t apologise, then she cannot expect us to work together. In fact, I am on record in saying that I will challenge her for the right to represent the PNP in the next general election. In a meeting in the constituency last week, Ms Hanna said, among other things, that councillors have been given money to carry out work and that in some cases she has not been seeing value for money. For the record, every money that the MP brings into the constituency is spent by she and her office staff.”

One man in his 60s with whom I spoke in Moneague told me that MP Lisa Hanna “have a way of talking down to people. She should know dat we down here long time, an she jus come. All one time when it was raining near di constituency office and wi have to tek shelter dere in one a di few time she is dere; she raise har voice and run wi out. Dat nuh right.”

Councillor Richards points out in the release that the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) is not just woefully mismanaged, but it never even got off the ground. She says there is no committee and no community people were ever invited to sit on that missing committee.

She goes further with this bombshell: “Well in South East St Ann, there has been one CDF meeting for the past seven years and no committee is in place.”

Let me get that straight. A rural farming community and there is no committee set up to identify projects which need relatively small amounts of money to fund.

In the midst of the CHIKV outbreak last year a Ministry of Health official told me that the country was also risking having an outbreak of leptospirosis because of the huge and seemingly uncontrolled population of rats islandwide. According to him: “We are into a box lunch culture. We eat and just throw the box everywhere. The rats gather where those boxes are gathered. When they are finished feeding, if the rains come, those same boxes collect water and its extends the reach and the life of CHIKV.”

Councillor Richards is not finished. In the release she makes a damning accusation: “The minister speaks of transparency and accountability but she is not practising what she preaches. Last August, at the public session at conference, I saw a document showing money that was spent in the constituency. I saw where in my division where $4 million was spent to eradicate rodents. I didn’t know of that so I queried it with the treasurer, and even until now I am not provided with an answer. I sent text messages to the minister who still has not responded. Where is that $4 million? ….Show me where in Bensonton that was spent.”

I must say that in the few times that I have interacted with Minister Hanna, either in her constituency or an uptown cocktail gathering, we have always greeted each other and demonstrated the civility called for by the moment. Early Friday last when I attempted to get her on the cellphone numbers provided on the release, there were just repeated rings or it went to voicemail.

The fact is, this is not a hodgepodge of accusations from one councillor. This is a strong battery of councillors in united voice against the MP. If our memory serves me right, when Lisa Hanna — once a member in good standing of the JLP who made her departure and was seen as an important ‘find’ and political ‘catch’ by the PNP — made her way down to the beautiful climate of South East St Ann, a little bit of ugliness occurred even to the state that it required PM Simpson Miller ‘setting the people straight’ on the constituency and what it meant to the PNP.

Hanna was not received arms wide open as a welcoming gift by the constituents. Eventually as the animosities died, they coalesced around her and once again took the seat for the PNP. The problem, though, is that the personality of Lisa Hanna was just never suited to rural farming people with their working boots firmly planted on the land and their hopes and fears tied up in simple, everyday steps to a better future.

Lisa would always be an adopted daughter who occupied the big house, while her constituents would never be quite what she wished they could have been. I have always sensed that she would be better placed in an uptown St Andrew constituency, where she would better get the chance to hobnob with a few business types.

Lambert Weir of the Claremont Division says in the release: “If you can recall, not everybody was happy with how she came into South East St Ann. However, as loyal party people, we all decided to bury the hatchet and work together. We actually started to believe in her until it became clear she wanted to clean house and bring in her own team. She clearly didn’t want to work with us.”

Again the clash of cultures and the distance between the MP on one hand and, on the other hand, the constituents and the constituency teamwork.

The three councillors are calling on the MP purely in her role as constituency boss, and not as friend of the prime minister and in her capacity as minister of youth. They want to have a sit-down with her to flesh out these matters that, for months, residents of the constituency have been phoning me and taking to me about.

The constituency is dear to my heart, as I spent a few years of my childhood living in Moneague. I have relatives living in Claremont and in Moneague I have old friends who see me in a better light that I see myself.

Minister Hanna owes these councilors a quick hearing/meeting and a fleshing out of matters of concerns. On the face of it, it cannot be that the Minister is right and three out of her four councillors are wrong. In the spirit of democracy, it is the MP who should admit that she has been outvoted.

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