Dear Editor,

I have been so busy trying to survive in this increasingly ludicrous country I am late on commenting on the madness called the national identification system (NIDS).

Many Jamaicans have neither a birth certificate nor a passport, how in the world is this NIDS foolishness going to be achieved when it is set to be so restrictive.

Aside from that, public education is more than lacking for such a project. Telling us about the difficulty of giving information before passing a law that might not have exist is a cop out. Giving information is the Government’s job — law or no law. We are not in the Dark Ages where authorities hid the truth, forcing everyone not to see beyond what they want them to. Everyone cannot leave work to watch a debate in Gordon House to know what is going on. This project is playing dangerously with our future. A hurried debate is all that we got.

This is the type of behaviour that caused the downfall of the People’s National Party in previous elections; they did not listen to the ones who put them there.

I have some questions:

1) Who is going to manage this system?

2) Why does it have to cost so much?

3) What is the real reason behind this weird un-Jamaican idea?

4) How is Jamaica going to repay that lovely loan when our dollar is worth nothing?

5) Were the citizens asked if they wanted such a system?

There are only a few things that our country can get right, and that is only our culture. Everything else is just a pain.

This system sounds as if it being forced upon us. I don’t have much confidence or trust in such a system, if we cannot even get the voters’ list right. There’s always couple dead people on it who may get to vote.

Now here are my face-saving suggestion: Answer the questions being asked1

We must stop trying to be like the United States. Their systems don’t prevent illegal immigration, crime, tax fraud, and other problems, we have yet to solve the wee problems in this country of ours.

Who do we really want to be? This system would not be helping anyone, except whomever will own the country after we can’t repay the new loan and trillion-dollar debt we still have.

Colette Campbell

rastarjamaica@yahoo.com