‘UGLY POLITICAL RECORD’
Holness’ two-term administration sets record for scandalous top-level resignations, dismissals
HISTORY WILL credit Prime Minister Andrew Holness for a number of achievements. Among them, having the lowest level of unemployment in Jamaica in 40 years, reducing the debt to GDP ratio in the last eight years, and presenting the most no tax budgets over the same period.
That same history, according to political scientist Dr Paul Bourne, will also note that he has presided over two administrations since 2016 that have seen a record number of senior members at the centre of high-profile scandals. This led to a record eight top officials of his government being either fired, reshuffled or forced to resign under a cloud.
“It’s not a record that any prime minister wants to set. But it’s a record that has been set, and it’s just been going over his head. He can’t do anything about it, because he has people who say and do what they want to, when they want to,” Dr Bourne told The Sunday Gleaner in an interview. “This is a record for him. And it’s not a record he wants, but it’s a record that has been created under his watch. I don’t think it’s one he wants to remember, but history will not allow him to forget it.”
He continued, “And that’s why I love this local government elections result because it has brought everyone down to earth. They [politicians] are arrogant and cocky, and this election has been a slap by the Jamaican people that they have seen enough and they want no more of it.”
ANDREW WHEATLEY
In 2018, the Holness administration was faced with the resignation of then science and technology minister Dr Andrew Wheatley over reports of nepotism, cronyism, and corruption at Petrojam (the state-owned oil refinery) and the National Energy Solutions Limited (NESol) – two entities under his portfolio.
He was accused of direct interference in the operations of NESol; while an audit of Petrojam revealed that billions of dollars of petroleum could not be reconciled, as well as administrative weaknesses at the entity.
Several employees of the entities lost their jobs and some are still under investigation.
There is no evidence t hat Wheatley benefitted from the improprieties at the entities, but he was forced to step down as portfolio minister.
Six years later Wheatley is still on the back benches of Parliament.
RUEL REID
A year later, in March 2019, then Jamaica College Principal and education minister Ruel Reid was gone from the Cabinet, following reports of corruption and misuse of public funds at the education ministry and the Caribbean Maritime University (CMU).
The office of the prime minister said Reid, who was once an adviser to Holness, was removed from the post in keeping with the principles of good governance.
Professor Fritz Pinnock, then head of the CMU, was also a casualty of the scandal.
Adverse findings by the Auditor General’s Department and a parliamentary committee regarding questionable practices at the education ministry also led to then permanent secretary Dr Grace McLean being sent on leave. She, along with another former permanent secretary, Dean-Roy Bernard, were deemed accountable as the accounting officers for the misuse of funds and were levied with heavy surcharges. However, McLean was cleared last year after the statute of limitations for the repayment expired, reportedly because of the education ministry’s lack of cooperation with the finance ministry.
Reid, his wife Sharen, their daughter, Sharelle, Pinnock, and Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) councillor Kim Brown Lawrence are now facing accusations in relation to nearly $50 million, which law enforcement claimed was allegedly diverted from the CMU.
They are to stand trial for a range of offences, including breaches of the Corruption Prevention Act, conspiracy to defraud, misconduct in a public office at common law, and breaches of the Proceeds of Crime Act.
KARL SAMUDA
In 2017, the then Office of the Contractor General initiated an investigation into alleged impropriety in the award of contracts, the issuance of licences, and the implementation of projects by the Jamaica Dairy Development Board.
Karl Samuda, who was the agriculture minister at the time, is alleged to have benefitted from having a Dairy Board 14-acre demonstration plot of Mombasa dairy feeding grass on a property he owned.
The investigations concluded that the action was a personal benefit from an agency under Samuda’s remit and represented a conflict. Although he denied any wrongdoing on his part, the investigative body deemed his action “ethically reprehensible”.
In a 2018 Cabinet reshuffle, Samuda was removed from the agriculture ministry. He resigned from the Cabinet last year while serving as minister of labour and social security.
JC HUTCHINSON
JC Hutchinson was stripped of his duties as minister with responsibility for agriculture in the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries in 2020 amid conflict-ofinterest claims in a Holland Estate land deal.
It was revealed that Hutchinson, via a letter, instructed the Sugar Corporation of Jamaica (SCJ) to transfer at least 1,400 acres of the 2,400-acre Holland Estate in St Elizabeth to Holland Producers, a company in which Hutchinson’s partner and mother of his son, Lola Marshall-Williams, reportedly had a 50 per cent stake. It was also revealed that their son, Jason, operated a company, Holland Farm and Garden Supplies, on the property.
ROBERT MONTAGUE
Following six years of turbulence during the JLP’s term in office, which led to him being reshuffled numerous times due to sagas involving the portfolios under his management, Montague resigned from the Cabinet in 2022.
His troubles began with the $400 million police used-car deal during his tenure as national security minister in 2017. Years later, the Jamaica Constabulary Force is yet to get the promised number of vehicles under a contract with O’Brien’s International Car Sales and Rentals. It remains unclear if the contract has been discharged.
Montague was also the subject of an Integrity Commission report that gave adverse findings against him in the handling of gun permits at the Firearm Licensing Authority (FLA).
In 2021, as then minister of transport and mining, he was again under pressure because of the Airports Authority of Jamaica’s questionable investment in First Rock Capital Holdings and Clarendon Alumina Production Limited.
There is no evidence that Montague benefitted personally from any of the transactions under investigation.
FLOYD GREEN
Floyd Green’s presence at an event during COVID-19 lockdown in 2021 was his undoing. He resigned as agriculture and fisheries minister, but in 2022 he was back at the helm of the revamped ministry.
Green was not linked to any issue of corruption.
MARISA DALRYMPLE PHILIBERT
Last year, Marisa Dalrymple Philibert resigned as Speaker of the House and member of Parliament for Trelawny South following a damning Integrity Commission report.
The Integrity Commission recommended that criminal charges be brought against her for making a false statement in her statutory declarations after omitting the purchase of a Mercedes-Benz motor vehicle from her filings between 2015 and 2021 and the controversial use of a 20 per cent duty concession to acquire it.
That issue is ongoing.
EVERALD WARMINGTON
Everald Warmington’s infamous boorish behaviour finally caught up with him.
Last month, he became the JLP’s eighth senior casualty as he was forced to resign from the Cabinet following public utterances about his intention to withhold public funds from an opposition People’s National Party (PNP) councillor in his St Catherine South Western constituency who was victorious in the local government elections.
Over the years, Holness failed to take action against Warmington, who has a history of uncouth behaviour. But the proverbial straw last month forced the prime minster to strip Warmington of his works portfolio.
‘UGLY POLITICAL RECORD’
“It has been a wave of negatives for the prime minister. This is an ugly political record,” Dr Bourne said.
“It’s going to be in the historical record and will be associated with him for the rest of his life. One hundred years from now, people are going to be, like, ‘What the hell was going on?’. It will be read and interpreted in a way that will cause people to ask if he was a terrible a leader.”
Dr Bourne expressed sympathy for Holness who he said inherited a JLP administration in 2011 that was reeling from the local and international fallout from the Government’s handling of the extradition request of JLP strongman Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.
But he pointed out: “It does not matter which way you look at it. The resignations/dismissals/removals are not attributes of a good leader. And it was allowed to spiral because it was not cauterised from the very first occurrence.”
‘IMPOSSIBLE NOT TO SEE THE DIRT AND NOT SWEEP IT’
Veteran journalist Franklyn McKnight expressed surprise at the size of the political graveyard.
“I had no idea that the graveyard had so many headstones. It’s so many. But there is another way of looking at it,” argued McKnight.
“Warmington has been there for so long and should have been nowhere near government. In fact, you can’t even credit the prime minister for taking action against him because all the circumstances made it impossible for the prime minister to have kept Warmington. He should have let him go a long time. It was just impossible not to see the dirt around the house and not sweep it out.”
McKnight, however, does not believe the weight of the “gravestones” will negatively impact Holness.
“We have become cynical and accept less than clean in government and pretend that it is acceptable. That’s where we are in Jamaican politics – when you become so used to dirt around the place that people don’t recognise that the place is nasty,” he shared with The Sunday Gleaner.
‘PRIME MINISTER SHOULD ALSO FIRE HIMSELF’
Chairman of the National Democratic Movement (NDM), Michael Williams, said Holness and the JLP created many of the problems that led to their own downfall, evidenced by the outcome of the recent local government elections.
“Both the JLP and PNP have had senior members removed from the Cabinet for various reasons over several administrations. But this is a record for any administration, with eight casualties under a cloud (never mind the reinstatement of Floyd Green). In eight years, they have had eight removals, some under dubious circumstances,” Williams told The Sunday Gleaner.
“But the prime minister should also fire himself. Holness is himself under a cloud. This is a prime minister whose statutory declarations cannot be cleared by the Integrity Commission for how long now. Plus he has business or businesses registered in another country, outside of the scrutiny of Jamaican officials.”
He continued, “The opposition leader has businesses in trust, but those were done before he came into politics, and he has been cleared by the commission.”
Williams noted: “Bruce Golding fired himself over the extradition request for Dudus. He also fired Derrick Smith and Trevor McMillian, but they did not leave like the people who left under Holness.”
The JLP has, over the years, used the many scandals linked to the PNP administration as fodder in the contest of which party is the most corrupt.
CAUTIOUS GOING INTO NEXT ELECTION
According to Dr Bourne, Holness must be cautious going into the next election.
“I can guarantee that he will be doing better going forward, which begs the question, ‘Why didn’t he just do the right thing in the first place?’,” he reasoned.
“But if you go back to the Bible, it happened with David and Saul … you name them. I am not calling the prime minister David or Saul, but every single leader got carried away in time. And that includes Michael (Manley) and Eddie (Edward Seaga),” he said.
Bourne is urging both JLP and PNP politicians to “do good” from the day they are voted in until the day they leave.
“Just do the right thing,” he beseeched.