Many years ago, a family friend asked me to do a home visit on a friend of his. She was losing weight rapidly and acting strangely. I arrived at the gate and was ushered in. As soon as I got to the verandah, a horrible smell wafted by. The closer...
JAMAICA’S HORSE-RACING industry, despite the best face being put on by two-year-old promoting company, Supreme Ventures Racing and Entertainment Limited (SVREL), is at an all-time low, crippled by a parasitic system of ‘categorising’ horses for...
The chairman of the Economic Programme Oversight Committee (EPOC), Keith Duncan, has again drawn attention to the fact that Jamaica has failed to meet the GDP growth target set in the current standby agreement with the IMF. This is despite meeting...
If you are playing cricket, you must hold the balls until it is appropriate to release. Whether one is bowling pace, spin, or googlies, the delivery must be within the range of the wicket and the bowler’s front foot must not cross the crease. Yet,...
The recent observance of National Tree Planting Day was about investing in our future. We planted trees ‘today’ for a prosperous ‘tomorrow’. The protection of the environment is critical to our survival as a nation. The Forestry Department has...
Central Bank Governor Richard Byles wants to see the kind of economic transformation that will guarantee better-paying jobs for the Jamaican worker. Earlier this week, the governor again echoed the concerns of other public-sector commentators...
Historically, literature on accounting, auditing, and corporate governance best practices have all pointed to the importance of internal controls to deterring and preventing fraud and other types of white-collar crimes in organisations. However,...
Normally, in the cut and thrust of Caribbean politics, any proposal by a government, especially in its annual budget, tends to generate more heat than light. However, this week in Trinidad, the light overtook the heat not by joules, not by amps,...
Delroy Chuck’s public whinge about how law-enforcement agencies went about the arrest of former education minister, Ruel Reid, and his alleged accomplices on corruption charges was not only a monumental exercise in poor judgement that weakened the...
Everybody betrays the Kurds. It’s an old Middle Eastern tradition. But given Donald Trump’s reputation for treachery, it’s astonishing how bad he is at it. This particular betrayal got under way on Sunday night. After a telephone conversation with...
From the point of view of politicians, one of the difficulties with arresting senior public servants for corruption is that they probably know a lot about malfeasance among their colleagues and superiors. In an effort to reduce their own sentences...
The Sunday Gleaner lead editorial (October 6, 2019), with the unfortunate headline ‘Has Mr Fulton caved in on Bernard Lodge?’ provides an opportunity for clarification of my positions, with some background. In April (and on many occasions prior and...
We don’t know if former education minister Ruel Reid and the persons arrested yesterday are guilty of the corruption charges that have been levelled against them. That, or their innocence, will, ultimately, be determined by a court of law. The...
Last week, Dr Clara Ricketts was declared by Amazon as the bestselling author for the month of September in the category of learning disabilities for her book, Yes They Can: Working with Children with Learning and Behaviour Disorders. Ricketts, a...
Yesterday morning at minutes to seven a.m. I went travelling. To bar joints I knew which were open from five a.m. To catch the early-morning alcoholics, those men who lived alone and probably needed two boiled eggs for breakfast, plus those who...
The Concise Oxford Dictionary describes vultures as poorly feathered birds that are ‘reputed to gather with others in anticipation of a death’. The said dictionary also speaks to vultures as rapacious persons, extortionate and predatory in nature...
Richard Pandohie’s impassioned call to arms in support of Jamaican manufacturing can’t but have inspired his audience at Saturday night’s exporters’ awards ceremony. It will, however, need strong analytic work, underpinned by sound policies, to...
With regard to your editorial of Thursday, October 3, 2019, where you stated that the minister of national security, Dr Horace Chang’s, remarks regarding the inefficacy of social interventions with regard to violence prevention were confirming the...
Changes are coming to the European Union (EU) with its new commission. I indicated in previous articles that the EU would be moving from the donor-and-recipient relationship to partnerships of equals. The Caribbean (ACP) Forum (CARIFORUM) seems to...
Recently, I went to the tax office in Mandeville to renew my driver’s licence. I entered the building at 8:40 a.m. and exited two hours and 22 minutes later with my renewed driver’s licence. It was a time-consuming and exasperating experience. The...
Having cobbled themselves halos from the rusting wreckage at Riverton for self-declared achievements in corporate governance, the bosses of the National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) believe, apparently, that they are on the cusp of...
Both Dr Horace Chang’s denunciation of social intervention failure in St James over 20 years and the October 3, 2019 Gleaner editorial’s acceptance of a similar failure in August Town suffer from a fundamental misconception based on inaccurate data...
On the news Sunday evening, the head of Carreras announced that his company will be offering paternity leave to complement the maternity leave that women benefit from on giving birth. This move was supported by the leader of the Opposition, who...
We seem incapable of dispelling illusion or reacting thoughtfully to national reflex tests. Take, for example, a recent ministerial order seeking to amend the Access to Information (ATI) Act to extend exemption for access to Cabinet papers from 20...
