Dear Editor,

Jamaicans, and I mean all Jamaicans, have been called upon to decide who is the lesser of two evils to run the affairs of the country at this time.

Note well, I did not say who is the better party to be elected to office.

The recent part II installment of the “Dead Babies Scandal” now playing out under the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Administration has started another tit for tat about who killed more babies. Even the health minister under the then People’s National Party (PNP) regime dipped his mouth in the matter when he should have kept it shut in embarrassment, but I have come to realise that none of our 63 parliamentarians, and former ones, too, really experience shame.

The real issue in both cases, in my opinion, was the failure of both governments to properly resource our health-care system, but no one from either of the political parties is willing to admit this failure.

Operation PRIDE was a programme with a great concept which was improperly managed. How do I know? I was an IT consultant on that project and saw first-hand the follies that took place. But, alas, the JLP is willing to blame the PNP for the Operation PRIDE failures when their own initiatives may be even worse.

Again, a failure of our politicians to manage the technocrats in the government.

Many of these technocrats have academic degrees from all over the place, yet we still hear of project overruns and malfeasance everywhere. Have our tertiary institutions got involved in the degree mill business.

It is a sad state of affairs when we allow fools to run our affairs.

Mark Trought

marktrought@gmail.com