Ronald Thwaites | The ‘would have’ culture 

Why the subjunctive? Did you or didn’t you do what you are saying you ‘would have’?  The now everyday manner of speech (especially in official circles) is not just linguistic clutter. It reflects a frame of mind which lacks intentionality, presents an indefinite picture, a doubtful result. It bespeaks a culture of public relations – not personal accountability or shared effort.

The ‘would have’ mentality asks us to accept intent in place of performance, substitutes promises for measurable outcomes and elevates ego-driven leadership instead of broad, critical participation.  

 ‘Would have-ness’ distorts progress. Concretely, it allows for the near 100 per cent excellent appraisal grade which public servants give to their peers and upon which there will be resumption of performance-based pay.

So school personnel can bask in the success of one or just a few students, but accept no responsibility for the failure of so many others.  We ‘would have ‘granted an increase to taxi operators but, a year and more later, it hasn’t happened, even as endless debt is being accrued by the JUTC and higher fares exacted on the street anyway. 

They ‘would have’ followed all procurement and recruitment protocols at NSWMA and UHWI but still ended up with corrupt results. Nailing down costs, timelines and completion standards are replaced by delays and over-runs. ‘A no nuttin’.

NaRRA is justified as leap-frogging over bureaucracy. Permanent emergency!  Neutering alleged gang members is posed as the way to cauterise violent crime. The Integrity Act stands in the way of integrity, so must be struck down. War is promoted as the highway to peace. 

It’s okay for those appointed to serve the public to become overlords and insist that we indemnify them against their own delicts. After NaRRA, stifling red tape will remain untouched; so will root causes of gang affiliation and scamming. Progress?

To thrive and to thrill - yes thrill! - for what else makes the effort of life exciting? Jamaica needs public servants who are strivers, achievers and accountable. Every dollar spent, every item or hour paid for by taxpayers, needs to yield benefit for the common good. 

SETTING EXAMPLES

Leaders are expected to set good examples. Not to be part of the ‘would have’ culture which camouflages failure, prevents factual reporting and makes excuses for impotence. Why not release the detailed results of last year’s external school exams?

Listen to Chris, in face of the Cornwall Regional massive miss-steps, pleading how different it ‘would have’ been if only NaRRA were available.  Trouble is, government at all levels is not trusted.  Common folk strongly suspect how people with state power stay – ‘teef’ and arrogant. 

The pretentiousness of some of the present overlords is insipid. Oddly, they think that their brief spree of self-push-up denotes strength and worth.  To the contrary, their sense of context and personal responsibility for the suffering they impose on so many should humble them. Self-restraint and self-correction are admirable virtues.

And, please, shameless shrews are especially gauche in the public sphere. 

When I was asked to serve as a minister of government, a police security team was assigned who were supposed to drive around with me in a special back-up car; or to sit at the office door awaiting enemies to repel or ‘unalive’. But, seriously, why should an elected official require protection from the very voters he or she courted to select them the previous week? 

 So I declined the offer as being unnecessary and expensive and ignored the criticism that, by so doing I was demeaning the office, had no ‘ambition’ and was behaving like Mother Teresa.  (I consider that last comparison an undeserved compliment!)

My political mentor is the Belizean Prime Minister George Price who lived in a small cottage and drove himself in a well-worn jeep. 

Jamaica largely ignores its weakest, converts their savings without consent, and lives on borrowed money.  America does that too. They can’t and don’t have to pay off their national debt. Not so us. We will have to pay back ‘dubloon an joint’ the borrowed billions which the bosses of National Reconstruction ‘would have’ placed under partisan control last week. 

For all the purposeful double-speak, there will be a time of reckoning, the fury of which no stuffed bank account, no self-praise, no standing orders, will assuage. ‘Pride cometh before the fall’.

Every instance of corruption, all the shortfalls and overruns in SPARK and elsewhere, constitute a mortgage of the futures of our children and grandchildren. They won’t thank us for this burden. Most of them will leave us in disgust.

FACING THE ENERGY CRISIS

There is need for an urgent, sober public discussion on Jamaica’s energy crisis. We will have to pay full tariff for every drop of petrochemical we use from now on. Recall Fayval’s heart-felt assurance in the Budget debate that the Government ‘would protect us’. It isn’t happening. The weekly $4.50 price increase is continuing and will likely increase, as will the light bills, even as we induce distracting apoplexy about a colonial mace, a golden calf in the Holiest of Holies. Geo Wm Gordon must be ‘chupssing’ his teeth in heaven.

 As things look, the United States will effectively control all Caribbean oil and gas -  from Venezuela, greater or lesser Guyana, Jamaica (Oh yes!) and anywhere else. The productive hour and a half each day which every one of us wastes commuting will soon double. Without a project for mass transit, Jamaicans will continue to buy private cars, provoke the need for more fuel, and aggravate gridlock and social distress. The convenience for which access to individual mobility was sought has now become the occasion of societal and personal paralysis.

The ‘would have’ mentality is a shroud covering the inadequacy of thought, planning, criticism and inclusion, sober virtues which prize and reward personal responsibility towards shared goals.

 I had hoped that, in the week between Marlene’s sober critique and passage of the hugely consequential NaRRA law, she, and others so minded, could have worked ‘behind the mace’ to come up with a consensus Bill. Then building back better would be a national crusade instead of a partisan venture. Ask yourself, what prevented this?

Rev Ronald G. Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. He is former member of parliament for Kingston Central and was the minister of education. He is the principal of St Michael’s College at The UWI. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.