EDITORIAL - Don't be fooled, Mr Azan

These days, Richard Azan is seeking refuge not only behind the prime minister's frock, but in scripture. God, he suggests, is his fortress.

But in invoking Christianity in his laboured, stumbling presentation in Parliament on Wednesday, what Mr Azan, in fact, did was to display his absence of shame. Or, at best he constructed a crude mask that provided him with a fantastically distorted view of events.

So, Mr Azan could revel in his "confidence" of the "benefits that will accrue" from the rehabilitation at the Spaldings, Clarendon, market, over which he has been much criticised.

Mr Azan is the junior minister for transport and works and represents a parliamentary constituency that embraces the town of Spaldings.

Unless he has retracted his admission, Mr Azan gave a private contractor the go-ahead to construct shops on the grounds of the market, exercising authority which he did not have and in clear breach of the Government's procurement rules.

There is more. Mr Azan allowed his political constituency office to become something of a rent-collection agency on behalf of the contractor who built the shops. He insists that he received no personal benefits from the venture, which we believe. But that is beside the point.

Mr Azan's behaviour demonstrates the potential danger of unrestrained ministerial action, whether because of deliberate contravention or ignorance of law, rules, regulations or the processes of governance.

He ought to have been sanctioned, preferably, as proposed by this newspaper, fired as a minister. That would result in no loss to the Government. In fact, it would have been of value to an administration that is struggling for both a moral and economic compass.

But Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, in an act of enablement, fudged. Rather than assuming the responsibility, given solely to her by the Constitution, for hiring or revoking the appointment of ministers, she contrived a statement by the Cabinet to the effect that Mr Azan would stay on the job, pending the outcome of investigations.

That investigation was initially presumed to be the one ordered by the local government minister, Noel Arscott, who himself had conceded in Parliament that Mr Azan acted outside his authority. A report that should have been completed in hours took months and is now, we have been told, complete. Its findings have not been released.

DANCING PM

We surmise that we will be told that the Government is now awaiting the outcome of an investigation launched by the contractor general, Dirk Harrison. Why that should have taken more than a day is beyond us. But we were willing to have given him seven.

In the meantime, the prime minister, with marked skill at disingenuity, has been able to dance, skip and jump around the issue. She cited natural justice and unwillingness to compromise investigations by public comment as reasons for her failure to level with the public on this important issue.

We believe we are right, along with the public, that the aim of the drawn-out investigations is for the issue to fade and the people to forget. And that might appear to be the case.

But these things don't just go away. They accumulate and fester in the subconscious. In these parts, there is no hiding in sacred tents and placement upon rocks, and ultimately, escape from the people's wrath.

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.