Dear Editor,

The recent imbroglio involving Lieutenant General Rocky Meade and the controversy caused by his appointment to the post of Cabinet secretary ended in a statement from General Meade indicating his intention to withdraw from consideration for the post. I found General Meade’s interesting as it would appear that the general had essentially thrown Governor General Sir Patrick Allen, Prime Minister Andrew Holness, and the Public Services Commission under the bus.

Many people have commented on this. But what I found most interesting is that General Meade’s statement was written using the Office of the Prime Minister’s (OPM) letterhead, rather than that of his personal desk. This led me to visit the OPM’s website to see how and why this would’ve been appropriate. What I discovered was startling. Listed amongst the agencies of the OPM is the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), neatly nestled in alphabetical order between HEART/NSTA Trust and the Jamaica Information Service (JIS).

This, as presented, is unconstitutional. The Jamaica Defence Force is not an agency of the OPM. It does not report to the prime minister or anyone in the OPM. The JDF reports to the Defence Board, which, though headed by the minister of defence, the prime minister, also comprises the minister of national security, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of National Security, and, of course, the chief of defence staff. The way that the information is presented on the OPM’s website appears to suggest that the prime minister has the same level of command, control, oversight, and dictate over the JDF as he does HEART, JIS, Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF), etc.

The Defence Act is very clear on this. The JDF reports to the Defence Board, and only for its administration. No one outside of the chief of defence staff and the commissioner of police can dictate or determine its operational use. The Defence Board does not get involved in issues such as operational or tactical deployment. If what exists on the OPM’s website is correct, then it would appear that, for some time now, the JDF has been taking instructions from the OPM, with those instructions quite possibly extending to operational- and tactical-level decisions. I hope that this was an oversight by a particularly enthusiastic web designer and not how things are being done in general.

The prime minister should be asked to clarify this one because, if correct, one could reasonably infer that the sudden fall from grace of the JDF, its lack of operational effectiveness over the years, and the general disillusionment from the public may be because the force has ceded its control to external actors. We hope this is not so.

Anonymous