Letter of the Day | Hold as top secret details of Parliament design
Published:Monday | May 21, 2018 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
It is very interesting to note that the design of the new Jamaican Parliament is an open competition to foreign design professionals as long as they are part of a Jamaican team. Whose brilliant idea is this?
Does the Jamaican Government care about national security? Aren't the new edifices going to be the place where the business of Jamaica and its elected officials will be housed?
The Pharaohs kept the plans to their tombs secret. The entire design team understood that certain death awaited them upon completion. The resting place of Genghis Khan is still a well-kept secret. The government that leads a democracy is at all times a national treasure. Its safety and protection will ensure that there is never a risk that the government will ever be wiped out by an attack, whether foreign or domestic.
Jamaica, by 2050, will emerge as one of the world's leading economies, and the Houses of Parliament must be designed to reflect this reality.
There is one opportunity at the outset to get it right. In addition to its aesthetics, the new Houses of Parliament must be fortress-like in their design, construction, and function. The design must be, as a matter of national security, Jamaica's best-kept secret.
The firms that will design, engineer, and construct the new Parliament buildings must have top-level security clearance and be vetted to the utmost assurance of competence, reliability, discretion, and patriotism.
Needless to say, only Jamaican-owned, -controlled, and -managed firms should qualify for such a sensitive undertaking.
If you or the Jamaican Government don't agree, pray tell me the name of a Jamaican that has participated in the construction of the equivalent to the Jamaican Parliament buildings in China, the USA, France, Italy, Germany or any other?
ROBERT STEPHENS