EDITORIAL - Dismantle the 'creng creng'

Thanks to the minutes of a meeting when members of parliament discussed it in secret, we now know Dr St Aubyn Bartlett's true feeling about the Constituency Development Fund (CDF).

It is that the CDF largely finances project fit for the "creng creng", the Jamaican name for a device used to prepare meat - usually pork - over an open fire. Or, looked at another way, it is a reasonable conclusion that Dr Bartlett concurs with this newspaper that the CDF is a bad idea gone worse.

But given the penchant of politicians for slicing, dicing and ladling pork, Dr Bartlett, despite private reservations, is unlikely to give up the CDF "creng creng" willingly. Hence, his joining of the still-sitting member of the House of Representatives and chairman of its committee on the CDF, Mr Everald Warmington, in that raw and venomous public attack on the press generally, and this newspaper in particular, for their reporting on the fund.

First inclination

We can't, unfortunately, say it was to the embarrassment of Mr Warmington, or Dr Bartlett, and those politicians whose first inclination is to circle the wagon in protection of pork. But it is the truth that it is not only this newspaper, and journalists broadly, who have concerns about the CDF. So, too, does the Office of the Auditor General.

In her report to Parliament for the 2008-2009 financial year, Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis raised serious and unsurprising concerns about the functioning of the CDF which she, we believe, mischaracterised as weaknesses in its management and oversight rather than systemic flaws in such programmes.

Among the auditor general's specific concern in that report was a series of so-called economic enabling agricultural projects in the North East St Elizabeth constituency of Mr Kern Spencer, on which several million dollars were spent without any obvious economic enablement and any objectives by which to measure success.

"... The audit could not determine the basis on which the fund's management satisfied itself that the projects' objectives were attainable, and if the projects would result in stimulation of economic activities and sustained development at the constituency level," that report said.

Nor, it said, was there any serious oversight of projects by the CDF monitoring unit in the Office of the Prime Minister, or any other agency.

No assurance

On the face of it, these kinds of projects, rather than those involving the building of physical structures, have not had the most problems, although, as the auditor general found, they are not without concerns.

Indeed, she highlighted a case in western St Thomas where a company approved by the National Contracts Commission to collect and dispose of garbage received a contract for $4.7 million to build a footbridge.

"... The CDF had no assurance that the contractor possessed the required competence to satisfactorily complete the reconstruction work," the report noted.

It is not unreasonable, we think, to ask if that bridge spanned anything and went somewhere. Moreover, we suspect that if the auditor general or anyone else dug deeper, it would emerge that the problems run as deep with the construction projects as those for "economic enablement".

But in the matter of the self-aggrandising distribution of pork, worth and accountability will be distractions for politicians.

The bottom line: the CDF should be scrapped and the $1.2 billion consigned to the appropriate government agencies with genuine accountability.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.