Although he might not have intended it for public consumption, People’s National Party (PNP) Treasurer Norman Horne has done the people of Jamaica, and even his party, a great service by presenting a report which is not only bold in terms of its implications for how the PNP does business, but for that party’s desire to govern Jamaica in the future.

This, along with the kerfuffle between PNP Paul Burke, the general secretary of the party, and the long-serving Member of Parliament for St Andrew Southern and the longest-serving finance minister of Jamaica, Dr Omar Davies, over alleged kickbacks to the party by powerful interests, should more than cause the Jamaican people to pause, sit up, and take a keen interest in how their country is being governed.

Over the years, political parties in Jamaica have left no doubt in the minds of many Jamaicans that they take bribes, kickbacks and indulge other corrupt practices in and out of government. In fact, for the past decade Jamaica has been reckoned as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. World Bank reports have spoken repeatedly to this phenomenon. Although we have moved up on the Corruption Perceptions Index (to 69th place in 2015), there is still a great deal to be done to bring transparency and responsibility to the issue of corruption-free governance.

Alas, we continue to see corruption in the award of contracts and massive overruns, especially in large projects. We have seen it in the political violence which the struggle to get command over scarce benefits and spoils by political parties has spawned. Significantly, we have seen it in the studied reluctance of successive governments to put in place robust legislation that have teeth and which can drive an effective nail in the coffin of corruption, if you will pardon the pun. We have been slow in creating an integrated organisation which can solidify the fight against corruption. The existing anti-corruption bodies such as the Office of the Contractor General, Independent Commission of Investigations, and even the Auditor General’s Department have been starved of capital and the requisite staff to do their work effectively. Anyone who thinks that this is not deliberate on the part of the powers that be will easily believe that there is a kind of butter that cannot be melted in the Sahara desert.

Why hasn’t the Government moved with any alacrity in putting in place the regulatory bodies to carry out the intentions of the campaign finance legislation which was passed by the last Administration with bipartisan support? The legislation is weak in important respects, but with mega projects in the pipeline, and some about to trickle out, the urgency of the regulatory framework cannot be understated. This especially in light of Burke’s allusions that the agency fee by big corporations that do business with Jamaica seems to be a settled way of the PNP doing business.

The Karisma Hotels chain is about to begin construction of its hotel interest on the island. The Chinese will be here in October to refine and consolidate their purchase of Alpart from UC Rusal. They have proposed a mega coal-fired plant, as their intention is not just to mine bauxite and produce aluminum, but to address the important value-added significance of allied industries that can be created out of alumina. The coal-fired plant must be a matter for further analysis, but one gets the gut feeling — again if Burke’s allusions are to be believed — that the Government, in its zeal to get the Chinese mega investment, might have already made concessions to the them without reckoning with the throwback it would have received from the environmental lobby.

One gets this raw, disturbing feeling in the pit of one’s stomach because this is how we have always done business in Jamaica with big corporations. We genuflect to their demands without doing the necessary due diligence which can safeguard the interests of Jamaica. We do so because they wave greenbacks in our faces and there is not often the integrity that says Jamaica’s interests are not for sale. So “two little lizards” on Goat Islands be damned, they are not going to stop the progress. The watershed areas in the Cockpit Country can be destroyed because this is just bush, and what is that to the green United States dollar. The people of Nain and its environs will welcome the Chinese and their coal-fired plant with open arms because they are destitute and desperately want the jobs that are to come. Never mind the potential contamination of the St Elizabeth aquifers with the cyanide by-products from this activity.

The sad conclusion to be drawn from all this is that our politicians have never operated with a mindset that really puts the Jamaican people first. Love for Jamaica or patriotic loyalty is really about achieving and wielding power and feathering one’s nest. Such diatribe is the language of pretty speeches that are given at important holidays, especially at Independence celebrations and the beginning of National Heroes’ Week. Those who have cared to be concerned have the visceral, nauseating feeling that, long before they achieve power, a great number of our politicians have been packaged and bought by the highest bidders.

This, incidentally, is not just a Jamaican phenomenon. The packaging and auctioning of politicians go on wherever political power is sought. It is part of the bane of politics in America which this election season accounts for — the high, untrustworthy index of the two leading contenders for the American presidency: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. No one who truly understands what is going on in American politics believes that Trump or Clinton can represent their best interests unless they have the wherewithal to influence power with their wealth. The truly disaffected will vote for either candidate believing their promises that they will fight for them and do good by them. But the truly discerning knows that they will not shift the dial in any significant direction towards their interests, and they will be left to gather up the crumbs that fall from the table of the wealthy and well connected. The lumpen are never the true recipients of the largesse that flows from the pipeline of political power and control.

Back in Jamaica, between taking care of their interests and looking after the demands of their rich donors and lobbyists, our politicians have little time to seriously do the people’s business. When they help themselves to the coffers of the State, or big corporations that do business with the State, they do not believe they are doing anything wrong. Their internal moral compasses are turned off by the reasoning that to them belong the spoils of office. They believe they have an entitlement to these resources because they have sacrificed and worked hard to attain them, and it is just ‘bad mind’ and grudgefulness why people would now want to deny them what is their due.

Just as a corrupt police force cannot investigate itself, and a corrupt political party cannot be relied upon to investigate a financial scandal, so can we not rely on political parties to establish the mechanisms to arrest corruption, punish the corrupt, and safeguard integrity and transparency in national governance. This must be the work of a robust citizenry to demand reform of our political process. This calls for serious constitutional reform insisted on by a strong, robust civil society.

We have witnessed the inherent weaknesses in both major political parties to govern themselves. How can we depend on one of them in power at any given time to really do their best for the Jamaican family? If they cannot police themselves, how effectively can they police national governance for the good of the nation? Wake up, Jamaica, we are being played for suckers!

Dr Raulston Nembhard is a priest and social commentator. Send comments to the Observer orstead6655@aol.com.