Dear Editor,

For a firm that specialises in public relations and marketing, the response from Market Me, the firm embroiled in a scandal of alleged corruption with Government, was quite lame.

First of all, no one suggested that the directors were public servants; how absurd to deny this in the statement to the public. What they didn’t answer was the question asked as to whether a director had been involved with or, as some would suggest, ‘entangled’ with a high-level public servant in a ministry from which they received millions in contracts.

It is also mind-boggling that a marketing firm would conceptualise the Jamaica Moves health initiative without any form of contact from someone directly involved in the health sector. Then they tried to confuse the issue by suggesting that they sought funding for the initiative from the private sector as well. This was another lame response, but nice try though.

What is also confusing is that the firm acknowledges it still owns the Jamaica Moves brand despite being paid over $55 million in contracts of various forms, sizes, and related projects from public funds.

The statement went on to assert that there was no conflict of interest. Of course not, one could argue, if the director who sat on the National Health Fund board resigned one week before the contract was signed. Timing is everything, especially in public relations.

The Market Me saga seems still quite messy after the lame response.

I refuse to believe that most Jamaicans don’t care about corruption, as some polls suggest. The media should be commended for probing these matters and keeping it in the news. The continued waste of public funds in government, due to corruption, is alarming. Why should the health ministry spend so much of its limited resources on public relations when funds could be better spent in hospitals and health-care facilities?

The Government is falling apart due to corruption and its own lax response.

P Chin

chin_p@yahoo.com