Dear Editor,

The bad fuel saga should open the eyes of all Jamaicans. The ongoing mess created in the lives of the motoring public with the introduction of bad fuel at the gas pumps in Jamaica must not go away quietly from the spotlight. It cannot be business as usual, as politicians like to say, and unfortunately do as a ritual, and in some most magical way, seem to get away with it.

It is a scenario that has created financial deficits in our personal budgets and emotional tiredness in our family lives and day-to-day activities. Don’t be fooled simply because there are some of us not hit yet; it’s no joke and when you are hit, you are hit hard, sometimes at the most inconvenient time. This ‘bad gas’ disables vehicles in traffic, at the supermarket, your kids’ schools, at church, or simply on the roadside.

The Government has spoken, but the silence is deafening on how they plan to compensate the affected car owners.

Personally, I think it’s a shame, in fact, disgraceful that our prime minister has not addressed the nation on what I see as the worst dilemma ever to hit our motoring public. The Bureau of Standards cites lack of funds to do their job, even if legitimately mandated and given the green light to do it properly.

The fact that there is no control mechanism at the ports to ensure all importers are consistently exercising the international standards of batch testing and some sort of sample storage for inspection, relevant accountability, and reporting to Bureau of Standards, or even at a Ministry of Energy level, it seems to be all on a ‘do as you like’ basis.

We cannot hear after so many weeks, what now will be the approach going forward to ensure this never happens again. What is the plan of action from our leaders, our Government? Are they serious about elevating Jamaica out of the doldrums of slackness and mismanagement?

My fellow Jamaicans, what we really need is common sense, as a people, and leaders who understand the concept that excellence can come through serious vigilance towards decreasing corruption and applying effectiveness and efficiency to our repertoire of management skills at all levels of operations. In other words, there has been enough talk, proceed therefore to the next step, which is to train and develop a people that know how to prioritise and get the job done by doing it right the first time.

Grayson Dowding

Portmore, St Catherine

gneil@hotmail.com