Karl Samuda vs Richard Azan — the great political tit for tat
Dear Editor,
I believe that People’s National Party Member of Parliament Richard Azan was careless. He facilitated the building of shops on State-owned land for Christiana vendors in his constituency without going through the established procedures regarding use of government property. To make matters worse, he used his constituency office to collect payment from the vendors on behalf of the building contractor. The optics looked bad.In a country known for political corruption, outrage followed the disclosure of Azan’s actions and he paid the price — his resignation, forced by his own party. After investigations by the Office of the Contractor General he was not found to have committed any criminality by trying to feather his own nest. Eventually, he was reinstated to his old job, having suffered the embarrassment and besmirching of his character. Still, it was his fault for being careless.Member of Parliament and Agriculture Minister Karl Samuda seemed not to have learnt anything from the sad case of Richard Azan. Samuda, a dairy farmer, used government-owned Mombassa grass for testing on his private land. He offered to pay for it, but when told there was no payment mechanism in place, did not back away. Testing on his land would benefit everyone, he thought. Again, the optics looked bad.Following the expected outrage, he paid for the grass. The Office of the Contractor General has also been called in to investigate the circumstances. These are necessary investigations to prove if there was any corruption on the part of the Member of Parliament. I hope this is not another waste of scarce taxpayers’ money running down something which is just another case of carelessness.But Samuda is not the only one who has not learnt from Azan’s incident. There are still those who are calling for his resignation before anything untoward is proven. The People’s National Party seems to want a political tit for tat, because Azan had been forced to resign. They couldn’t care less if Samuda is guilty or innocent. So this political game will continue at the expense of the Jamaican people.Those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat its mistakes. This political tit for tat is the slow train to Hellsville. Those who mean this country well should hop off quickly.
Diane Gordon
Meadowbrook, St Andrew
dianegordon2012@hotmail.com
