Flawed arguments on party financing
Published:Tuesday | June 29, 2010 | 12:00 AM
The Editor, Sir:
The conclusion by Peter Bunting, general secretary of the People's National Party (PNP), quoted in The Sunday Gleaner's editorial, in support of "transparent party financing", that "if any individual or corporate entity makes a donation that they are embarrassed about or they want to hide, there must be something improper" is not only naive but overly superficial in the context of a political culture described by Jamaica's longest-serving prime minister as "the fight for scarce benefits and spoils carried on by hostile tribes that seem to be perpetually at war".
Many honest Jamaican entities and individuals simply fear the political victimisation, which is part and parcel of overt political support in Jamaica. The case of the FINSAC'd entrepreneurs, victims of the financial meltdown of the 1990s, is enlightening in this respect.
In the context of the words of former PNP MP, Aloun Assamba, about "stocking the committee with her people", the assertion does little more than encourage the anti-business ethos so dominant in sections of Jamaican society. It is not only an indictment on the political parties, but on the many hard-working Jamaican entrepreneurs when a national institution, The Gleaner, asserts "the big contributors to parties and politicians are less likely to be legitimate firms than individuals who are awash with cash from other than legitimate enterprises".
Stereotypical
This assertion is not only stereotypical and serves to further alienate honest business people from the political process, it encourages the fallacy that the successful business person in Jamaica operates "other than legitimate enterprises".
While all well-meaning Jamaicans must support transparency in party financing, like all other enterprises, it must be guided by impartiality and empirical inquiry, not by long-held beliefs and the outdated Jamaican notion that "if a nuh so, a near so", or as the Sundays' editorial puts it "notions tend not to be totally baseless but have some basis in fact".
I am, etc.,
PHILLIP CHAMBERS
Greater Portmore, St Catherine