Wanted: a culture of accountability
THE PETROLEUM Corporation of Jamaica (Petrojam) is a very profitable publicly owned monopoly; it sets the prices for its products, and so its bottom line is guaranteed to be always in the black.
Company policy seems to be to set gas prices high enough to guarantee a huge surplus to allow tens of millions of dollars in donations to beneficiaries of their choice. This has been a source of barrels of political pork for both parties over decades.
I have always wondered why when global oil prices increase, Jamaican gas prices quickly go up, but when the price of oil falls on the world market, Jamaican oil prices do not fall by as much or at all. Maybe to understand Jamaican gas-price movements, I need to factor in the quantum of donations to community projects, the scheduling of company construction projects, the awarding of consultancies and insurance plans, the employment of favoured staff members, and maybe also the foreign travel of staff and board members.
I think that in the public interest, there needs to be an audit of the pricing mechanism used by Petrojam to raise and lower fuel prices weekly. The prices of all goods sold to us consumers are affected by the cost of transporting them to the point of sale. This is a case where political corruption affects us directly in our pockets – every day. Petrojam must be held accountable for its actions.
Every political administration in Jamaica’s history has been plagued by corruption scandals – with no exceptions. Politicians would like us to think that they offer themselves as public servants with purely altruistic motives – with selfless concern for the well-being and progress of their constituents and the nation.
I would never claim that there has never been an altruistic politician, but good governance demands that we must assume otherwise. Our laws and policies and standard operating procedures must promote transparency in public affairs must allow us to detect corruption and malfeasance as it occurs, and must assist in investigation and prosecution.
STANDARD PRACTICE
It is now standard that every incoming administration publicly commits itself to putting an end to political corruption, but the corruption continues, and it is also standard that no one is ever held accountable. Maybe someone resigns, but they are never prosecuted. Maybe someone is shuffled away from the portfolio in which there has been chicanery, but charges are never laid. Maybe money is returned, but no one is brought before the courts for misappropriation of public funds. We do not have a culture of accountability.
We knew who was responsible for bogus voting – the officers who presided over boxes where egregious overvoting took place were well known, but were never held accountable because they were doing the bidding of others who the system would never expose.
The political spinners have spun that the present Petrojam scandal is not corruption, but the result of a failure or the absence of policy. What nonsense! Because there is no specific policy, it was okay to appoint board members who live overseas? Because there was no specific policy, it was okay to donate millions to be spent in the constituency of the minister?
And so new policy has been announced. The press release states: “It will be a requirement that all donations be disclosed, with details to include the amount, the receiving entity, the purpose of the donation and connected party consideration with the management, board of directors or the minister.”
What I want to know is: Disclosed to whom?
There are already requirements for disclosures of assets of politicians and public servants, contributions to political parties, gifts to public officials, and the like, but these disclosures are all made in secret, to secret committees.
If the Petrojam donations are to be disclosed to the public, why not the others?
‘It is now standard that every incoming administration publicly commits itself to putting an end to political corruption, but the corruption continues, and it is also standard that no one is ever held accountable.’