Why it’s best not to reveal the meat of Easton Douglas’s last interview

AS the furore over a verbal, and physical (?) confrontation between daughter of late Cabinet minister Easton Douglas, Kari; and a doctor at Bustamante Hospital for Children continues, I took the time to reflect on the last interview I had with Easton, weeks before he died in September last year of complications associated with cancer.

Easton was a fine man. As a town planner and land surveyor, few could test him on issues of those professions. He, at one time, was seen as prime ministerial material, and likely successor to PJ Patterson. But things never quite worked out.

He was voted out as vice-president of the People’s National Party (PNP), and later gave up the St Andrew South Eastern seat to Maxine Henry-Wilson, in a constituency that has had some hard-working Members of Parliament, including the incumbent.

Easton continued to serve his country in several capacities, even as he was stricken with cancer, the care of which cost him millions of dollars.

But Easton has gone to his grave with one real peeve — the manner of how he was handled by the PNP Administration while he served as chairman of the National Housing Trust, specifically in respect of the purchase of the 9.1-acre Outameni property at Orange Grove, near the Trelawny parish capital of Falmouth.

He chronicled to me in that interview how he was virtually forced by his own people to buy the property which has a great house on it.

Yet, when the matter came to public attention in 2013, everybody who called him up to five times a day telling him what to do, suddenly developed amnesia.

They all pulled away from him. He listed five Government officials at the time.

Now, Easton begged one thing of me: “Please do not publish this when I am alive. When I am gone, you will know what to do.”

He knew that he would die soon. He did…shortly after. But he went ‘home’ bitter with his party that some of its big name personalities threw him to the wolves.

Now, if I were to ask the four men and one woman about Easton’s allegations, you can bet that they would all deny them.

Easton is no longer here to stand up to those anticipated denials. And the next thing you would not want is a legal wrangling that could go on forever.

Easton’s utterances were recorded though, and if what he said turns out to be true, then it would not look good on those whom he said begged for, and instructed that the purchase be effected, yet when push came to shove, they all became conveniently ignorant of the issue.

Using water from the sea

DESALINATION — the process of separating salt from water — is back in the news again, and one man seems hell bent on making the project a reality.

Minister with responsibility for water Pearnel Charles Jr represents the new breed of thinkers who believe that certain things are worth going after.

And already, talks are being held and moves being made to look at the feasibility of such a project.

In this day and age we need creative thinkers as leaders, people who are not afraid to take chances, take tough decisions too.

Jamaica has been grappling with the problem of shortage of water in recent years. There must be a secondary means of utilising water, and getting it from the sea has to be one of the ways.

Money was a concern many years ago, but with improvement in technology, it now costs less to set up such a plant.

The good thing is that not only will there be drinking water, but the salt that is separated can be sold as table salt — that growing commodity called sea salt, thereby creating another industry. Let’s give this one some encouragement.

Wa kinda BC ting dat, Mr Walker?

WHAT happened at the graduation ceremony for the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts was spectacular in the least.

The colourful language used by valedictorian Waldane Walker close to the end was totally unnecessary, considering the occasion.

I, at times, visit the land of colourful language. But when I’m there, I know how to use the resources. Curse words are a part of the Jamaican culture.

But what could anyone want to achieve by using them in such an environment with young and old people around. Who would no doubt feel offended?

Could it not have waited for when the drinks were flowing? I find the gesture cheap and unwarranted.

In fact, that wasn’t funny a BC… Edna Manley is spinning in her grave.

Lee Chin and the lost art of economic growth

JAMAICA cannot achieve economic growth by establishing an Economic Growth Council, and then some of its numbers get up and say growth will be achieved… akin to waving a magic wand It’s not like in religious education when in Genesis chapter 1 verse 3 God said “Let there be light”… and there was light.

Some of these economic growth people seem to think that they can just get up and say “let there be growth and … (fill in the blanks). It just does not work like that.

It doesn’t need an economist to determine that economic growth requires a nation to produce in a serious way.

That’s not happening now. There are far too many idle hands, and several of those idle hands contribute to the wasting of countless hours with their deliberate time-wasting, gossiping, for example, and in the process missing production targets.

Jamaica is not churning out the kind of products, either for export or local consumption, that will make a massive difference in how business is conducted here.

Crime, too, is proving to be a major negative to growing this economy and if that is not fixed, then it’s best to snap out of that dream of achieving growth. It makes no sense for Lee Chin to be cussing off some permanent secretaries, although they, like any other profession, have people who are counterproductive within their ranks.

Instead, he should be urging the policymakers to crack the whip, and the legislators to enact laws that will rid this nation of some of those Columbus-like systems that continue to run the place.

By the way, permanent secretaries can be fired, unlike what Lee Chin has said. A simple research would have shown that. Based upon the numbers so far, it would seem that Jamaica will, at the end of the fiscal year next March, realise annualised gross domestic products (GDP) growth of around one per cent.

That’s not good, but if certain things are fixed, and that does not include sacking permanent secretaries, in a matter of two years three per cent growth would be quite realistic.

But the people who came with this foolishness called “Five in Four”, meaning five per cent growth in four years, without putting relevant systems and structures in place to achieve that, had better awake from their slumber.

Fantasising has no place in the real world.