Editorial | PM falls short on Hutchinson, Vaz

J.C. Hutchinson was not held to account for his misbehaviour. Neither was Daryl Vaz, earlier. Which, again, calls into question how deeply committed Prime Minister Andrew Holness is to the accountability and public trust upon which he promised to build his government, and the amount of political capital he is willing to spend towards that end.

Last week, Mr Hutchinson, minister without portfolio, and in charge of the day-to-day operations on the agriculture side of the Ministry of Industry, Commerce, Agriculture and Fisheries, was transferred to the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM). That, presumably, was punishment, although, for Mr Hutchinson, the grovelling mea culpa he felt compelled to offer was probably infinitely worse.

Mr Hutchinson leaned on the Government’s SCJ Holdings, which controls former sugar lands, to hand over the 2,400-acre Holland Estate in St Elizabeth – initially in a one-year, no-pay trial deal – to a company of which Mr Hutchinson’s common-law wife, Lola Marshall-Williams, is a shareholder, and her business partner, a manager at a farmers’ support agency that reported to Mr Hutchinson, and on whose board she sat. Ms Marshall-Williams’ company, Holland Producers Ltd, sublets portions of the estate to farmers.

There was no public tender for this ‘divestment’ of Holland Estate. When this newspaper unearthed the deal, Mr Hutchinson lied about directing SCJ Holdings to entertain Holland Producers’ business proposal, and rejected any claim of a conflict of interest. Having, after public pressure, accepted that “I was wrong”, Mr Hutchinson said his intentions were pure: to get land to farmers. And government institutions would have been too slow and too inefficient.

Prime Minister Holness accepted that explanation, agreeing that Mr Hutchinson’s declared objective was in keeping with government policy.

“Nevertheless, there were clear breaches of established procedures in implementation to provide for transparency, competition and disclosure,” Mr Holness said. “The fact that 184 small farmers benefited from having access to the said lands, and these farmers are cultivating the lands in an orderly manner, do not, by themselves, cure these breaches.”

So, the prime minister terminated the arrangement with Holland Producers; and for breaking the rules, Mr Hutchinson was marched off to the OPM, presumably like a wayward boy to reform school. Except that, in this case, Mr Hutchinson retains his place in the Cabinet.

Less than a month before the Hutchinson scandal, Mr Vaz, minister without portfolio in the OPM extension, the Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation, was called out for attempting to lease, for himself, land on the boundaries of a protected forest. The environmental agencies that oversee the protected forest, and the agency from which the land would have been leased, reported to Mr Vaz.

He dropped the bid, Mr Vaz said, not because it was wrong, but because he is “a minister”, suggesting that his concern was not ethical, but the possible political fallout from the outcry.

Mr Vaz escaped the even mild public reprimand received by Hutchinson. He was, it was announced, relieved of the land, environment and climate change portfolios and assigned the seemingly substantive responsibilities for water, housing and “special economic development projects” in the same ministry.

PLAYING SAFE ISN’T ENOUGH

Two years ago, at the outbreak of the scandal over nepotism, cronyism and corruption at the Petrojam oil refinery, and similar complaints at other agencies in the portfolio of Dr Andrew Wheatley, the then science, technology and energy minister, Dr Wheatley engaged a slow, two-stage exit from the Cabinet – giving up, first, part of his portfolio, before being prevailed upon to offer a full resignation.

We appreciate that politicians have to foster coalitions to become leaders of their parties and prime ministers, and the juggling skills they often have to master to hold the alliances together. Mr Holness, though, as “the first of the post-Independence generation to lead Jamaica”, promised something different. He offered Jamaicans trust.

“There is only so much trust that pledges and statements of commitment can buy,” the prime minister said in his inauguration address. “I understand that the Jamaican people now want to see action in building trust. This is part of fixing the government. Everyone who will form the next government must be seized of this expectation. From the politician making policy to the civil servant processing an application, we must act dutifully to fulfil our responsibilities. Trust requires the actualisation of our commitments. We will fulfil our commitments.”

Nearly five years on, the trust deficit remains high. Transparency International’s Corruption Barometer for 2019 showed that 78 per cent of Jamaicans still believed their Government to be corrupt and that nearly half the country felt the problem had grown worse over the previous year. Forty-four per cent held parliamentarians as dishonest.

These perceptions have probably grown worse since then. Prime Minister Holness cannot by himself fix these things, but the larger part of the responsibility is his. Playing safe to maintain his coalition is not enough. As we have said in the past, he can’t be afraid of risking political capital.