Taking the strap to Paulwell

By George Davis

The prime minister (PM), Portia Lucretia Simpson Miller, has given me hope. By ordering that this country end its role as the horse in the idiot merry-go-round with Energy World International (EWI), she has shown that she meant what she said when she stood tall and strapping at Sir Patrick Allen's house on January 6, 2012 and affirmed that her administration would not be coloured by the crayon of corruption.

By calling time on Phillip Paulwell's (well intentioned though he may have been) daily chore of taking a chainsaw to Jamaica's credibility, the prime minister has proven what some of those closest to her have relayed to outsiders that she's not a woman who 'kin teet'. Her decision to claw back some of the respect that the country has lost over the past few weeks through the unravelling of this EWI saga, engineered by the zealotry of Minister Paulwell, is deserving of the highest praise.

In any self-respecting country, such an action by a prime minister is par for the course. But in this country, where political leaders are loath to strike out at their most dependable war horses, such action is, sadly, an exception. As the cookie crumbled on EWI, some wizened political commentators wondered aloud whether Minister Paulwell would have been able, under previous prime ministers like Manley, Seaga or Golding, to trample on the Government's own procurement rules and attempt to inveigle a commission of Parliament into changing its considered opinion on a public tender process. Theirs was the lament that Mrs Simpson Miller had missed the chance to check Paulwell's speed before the minister's seeming love-in with EWI had bubbled to the boil.

The prime minister has invited pressure on herself and her administration by ordering that a process which was slated to deliver cheaper energy by mid-2016 be abandoned. This was the solemn promise made during the 2011 election campaign. The move will no doubt prove unpopular with some dyed-in-the-genes Comrades who believe EWI should've been persevered with at all cost until the promised land of electricity, supplied at 13 cents per kilowatt-hour, was beneath our feet. Indeed, this power plant was to be commissioned in time for the next general election campaign and stand as an accomplishment that would drown out any sounds made by Andrew Holness and his band on the political hustings.

SLAP TO THE CHEEK

Additionally, the PM has basically, without raising her hand, delivered a slap to the cheek of a man who, on balance, has served PNP administrations well as Cabinet minister since 2002. She has also hurt the pride of a man who has been good as a political organiser and has distinguished himself through his professional, unfussy approach to the role of leader of government business in the House of Representatives.

In short, the man, Phillip Paulwell, together with the political and public servant he has proven himself to be, would've made this decision perhaps the toughest call of Mrs Simpson Miller's decades-long political career.

But the fact she has acted so decisively shows just how badly Minister Paulwell has transgressed in this specific regard. It also shows just how exposed the Cabinet is to the charge that it facilitated the flagrant abuse of the country's procurement process and did nothing as one of its own tried to undermine the country's leading anti-corruption agency.

But in a display of the wisdom that's expected of someone pushing the biblically significant age of three score and ten, Mrs Simpson Miller has shown that while her ministers will enjoy free rein to do their jobs, they'll not be allowed to disgrace the country in the process. She has also ensured that the statisticians and note-takers at global anti-corruption watchdog, Transparency International, will have to delete the paragraph they were preparing on Jamaica being an institutionally corrupt country led by a complicit Government and Cabinet. She has also repaired the damage done by her meek handling of the Azan-Spaldings affair.

In the midst of all this, spare a thought for the minister. He was hell-bent on being the man to deliver cheap energy whatever the obstacles he had to surmount. It's a pity he stuck the middle digit of both hands up at the rules.

Selah.

George Davis is a journalist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and george.s.davis@hotmail.com.