Garth Rattray | Jamaica will remain a monarchy, unless …

The long-awaited plans for Jamaica to become a republic seem to be coalescing and congealing. However, although the Queen will go, Jamaica will remain a monarchy because corruption will always be king. The reason that most people do not realise just how deep corruption is woven into the fabric of our black, green and gold flag is because it is invisible. That trait allows it to be accessed by anyone, anywhere. Invisibility makes it difficult to detect, and easy to deny. Like ether, it is everywhere, and people generally speak of it in nebulous terms.

For some, it is the elixir of life; for others, it is a sickening brew. For our country, it is the infiltrative poison that is slowly corroding it from inside out. Archaic practices, obstructive bureaucracy, laziness, inefficiency, and greed open the door for corruption. It may begin small and perhaps innocuously, but it soon becomes the dominant factor in getting things done. This pernicious entity effortlessly adapts to any environment. Therefore, corruption has various manifestations, and that makes it even more deeply entrenched within our society.

Many years ago, a good friend of mine unwittingly participated in a corrupt practice. His Rottweiler puppies chewed off the car registration plates. At that time, he had to take the damaged plates to the police, then get a letter to take to the tax office, then pay for a replacement, then keep the temporary plates until the replacements were ready. Going through all of that was no simple task; it was stressful, tiresome, and killed his work-day.

He visited the tax office repeatedly for up to one entire year, but the replacement plates were never ready, and they attempted to take away the temporary plates. That would leave him with no plates at all! That car was eventually sold without his receiving the replacement registration plates. To his dismay, a registration plate on the new car was badly damaged by a careless pedal cyclist. He dreaded repeating the time-wasting and futile process, so he telephoned his friend, who was in the car business, and asked if he knew someone on the inside who could expedite the replacement plates. His friend asked for the plate number and, bright and early the very next morning, he surprised him by delivering a pair of brand-new, genuine, government issued replacement plates. His friend destroyed the old plates in his presence and asked for $2,000, the same ‘fee’ needed to replace them through the system.

FACILITATE CORRUPTION

Inefficiency and making things very difficult for the public facilitate corruption. My friend only wanted to replace damaged registration plates without being punished by the system, but there are those who will want bogus registration plates to carry out nefarious acts.

Agents of the state will take advantage of flaws in the system. For example, rogue traffic police who extort motorists do exceptionally well financially. The heavy emphasis on exorbitant fines and accumulating points relegates road safety to second place. It has become a cat-and-mouse game. Some drivers even carry “police money”. The system lacks checks, balances, accountability, and mechanisms to apprehend extortionist rogue cops.

A very temporary light is occasionally shone on Jamaica’s chronic, shameful, and extensive construction violations. These are caused by inefficiencies within the system, but more so by deeply entrenched and widespread, institutionalised corruption. Although breaches violate safety standards, zoning regulations, covenants, our citizen’s right to privacy, our constitutional right to ‘enjoy’ our homes, and cause property values to plummet, engender acrimony, and proliferate ghettos, they persist because the corrupt system supports them. This current hullabaloo will soon fade and disappear into obscurity. Despite the numerous and glaring evidence of inefficiency and corruption, no one has been held responsible, and things continue as usual.

In bureaucracies, trickle down corruption exists as nepotism, abuses of power, cover-ups, fraud, favouritism, seat-warming, abusing benefits, kick-backs, bribes, pay-offs, unnecessary spending, circumventing bidding processes for contracts, ghost workers, stealing, sexual abuse, and God knows what else. When these things occur within the upper echelons of management, the subordinates see and learn from them. Corruption is rarely a one-man operation; individuals often organise supportive ‘rings’ to facilitate and carry out corrupt practices. Sometimes these rings are linked interdepartmentally and sometimes they extend to external players that are required to complete the deeds.

EVERYTHING GETS DONE

Whenever red tape and inefficiencies cause citizens to lose precious time and/or money there is usually a way to ‘let off something’ to the right person or set of people, and all of a sudden, like magic, everything gets done quickly. When things stall indefinitely in the system, greasing palms will get those wheels unstuck overnight. If people are faced with extraordinary hassle, stumbling blocks, or red tape, dropping money in the right hands will suddenly clear the way for things to get done.

Those same corrupt pathways do not discriminate between citizens who are in genuine need of getting their business done in an inefficient system, and rule breakers/law breakers who utilise corruption to get their way. And, since people never get tired of accumulating money, corruption will remain well-established.

Corruption will always be king because inefficiencies encourage it, rule and law-breakers depend on it, and greedy individuals profit from it. Corruption will always be king because its loyal subjects live by and profit from its immense ‘benevolence’.

Garth A. Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and garthrattray@gmail.com.