Kern Refuses to Resign!

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Friends we have interesting news to report this morning.

A high level delegation from the People's National Party (including PNP General Secretary, Peter Bunting) met with the Constituency Executive of North East St. Elizabeth, yesterday.

[Mr. Kern Spencer, the Member of Parliament for North East St. Elizabeth, has been charged with fraud, money laundering and corruption, for his role in the JMD $270 million, Cuban Light Bulb Project, gone awry.

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(Jamaica is divided into 60 constituencies, whose elected representatives sit in Parliament.

These representatives are called Members of Parliament)]

The Constituency Executive told the delegation that they are fully behind Mr. Spencer - they really don't see any reason why he should resign.

[There has been mounting pressure on Mr Spencer to resign his post as Member of Parliament (MP) for the constituency, following his arrest, last Tuesday, on money laundering, corruption and fraud charges, as they relate to the Cuban Light Bulb Project.

(Mr. Spencer was former State Minister in the Ministry of Industry,Technology, Energy and Commerce and was given oversight of this Project.

Please read our posts for the week of February 26,2008 for a background re this.)]

Mr. Spencer also met with the delegation, this week and communicated his intent to remain as MP of North East St. Elizabeth.

Well, if what we hear from the Constituency Executive and what we see on television are to believed, then the people of North East St.Elizabeth are so enamored by their representative, that they do not want him to resign.

They are willing to accept him as their representative, no matter what charges have been made against him.

Interesting, huh?

This gentleman has been accused of defrauding the people of Jamaica to the tune of JMD $270 million dollars and yet the people that he represents, see nothing morally wrong with him representing them.

That $270 million dollars that could have been used to:

1) Improve their and our hospitals, schools, roads (most of which are in deplorable conditions) and that could help to pay off our trillion dollar debt.

2) Pay their and our teachers, nurses, doctors who work in public hospitals, police, firemen and women, civil servants...

Who, come April, when the new budget is announced, will be pressuring the government for increased pay...

and for whom the government of Jamaica will have to borrow money to pay, since we can't seem to generate enough revenues to meet their pay bill.

3) Support their and our elderly, disabled and destitute and contribute to a better standard of living for all Jamaicans.

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In any other civilized country, if a public official is implicated in wrong-doing, he/she doesn't even wait to be officially charged, to resign his/her post...he/she does it immediately...for,

He/she knows that:

1) He/she owes it to the people he/she represents, to have representatives who will act in their best interest and who will appear to be transparent, ethical and honest in all their dealings, but especially those that involve the people's money.

2) The people he/she represents, think enough of (so highly of) themselves, to not allow people who may be involved in wrong-doing...even if it's an implication, to represent them...as it's a bad reflection on them as a people, to have representatives who appear to be dishonest...

(Additionally, there are too many honest people falling over themselves to represent them, that they don't have to dig at the bottom of the barrel, to find a representative.)

3) It's a bad reflection on the political party who put him/her up, for election, in the first place.

Hmmmh!

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All I can say is that the PNP surely has interesting days ahead.

For the Party is caught in a moral dilemma....

Should their leaders force Kern to resign against the wishes of his constituents, or should they allow him to stay, despite the moral implications of him doing so?

It will surely be instructive to see the decision the Party makes, re this in light of the recent admission by Dr. Peter Phillips, PNP Vice-President, that the PNP has lost the trust of the Jamaican people in terms of its moral authority to lead.

Gillian

Sources Include

1) Nationwide Radio, News at 7:00 a.m., March 7, 2008