EDITORIAL - Callow Barnswell, shameless Azan

Maybe Scean Barnswell's handling, so far, of the Spaldings Market saga can be explained by his callowness. The chairman of the Clarendon Parish Council wants to compensate the man who attempted to exploit public property for private gain, but was caught out.

As for Richard Azan, the deputy works and transport minister and MP for North West Clarendon, his appears to be callous and callused ignorance and an absence of shame. That would explain why he hasn't resigned from the Government over the fiasco and why he feels politically set upon by the highlighting of his infractions.

At the same time, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller should be wary of being perceived as permissive of intolerable behaviour if she fails to throw the book at Mr Azan.

Or, perhaps, in the scheme of things, Mrs Simpson Miller sees the Spaldings affair as being a matter of no great moment. That would be risky, given people's perception of a high level of corruption among government officials.

In that case, Mrs Simpson Miller should not be surprised at public anger at the revelation that Mr Azan - to the ignorance of the Clarendon Parish Council - sanctioned a private contractor's construction of shops at a market owned by the parish council, then allowed his constituency office to behave like a rent-collection agency for the contractor.

Having backtracked from what most people interpreted as fair criticism of Mr Azan's high-handedness, Mr Barnswell and his fellow People's National Party (PNP) councillors agreed to "regularise" the arrangement with John Bryant, the erring contractor who is said to be close to the PNP.

The Clarendon Parish Council would 'buy' the shops, built on the lands without its permission, apparently setting off recent previously collected amounts by Mr Bryant against the undisclosed purchase price. Although those arrangements were well in train, there was no verification of the amount of rent collected for the shops.

wrong signal being sent

That the transaction is being messily done is one thing. Worse is the signal being sent by the arrangement. This is a precedent for the encroachment on people's property - public or private - and when they complain, to extract compensation from them for the building erected without authority and without satisfying planning regulations.

The Clarendon model sets a dangerous precedent and must not be allowed to stand.

Then there is Richard Azan. He says he was doing good, getting private capital to address a need.

His behaviour, in fact, was a reflection of what is all too common in Jamaica's political arrangement: an arbitrariness of ministerial authority. Ministers and other parliamentarians are expected to be distributors of patronage, whether in the form of public-sector contracts or handouts to constituents from the Constituency Development Fund.

It is perhaps a measure of how entrenched and 'normal' that dysfunctional idea of representation has become in Jamaica that Mr Azan saw nothing wrong or immoral in giving a contractor permission to build on government land and perceived no conflict of interest in his office being the rent-collection centre. He has shamelessly defended his behaviour.

His ignorance should not be tolerated and he should be made to pay - with his job in the Government.

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