MOTHER OF ALL SCANDALS

By ANDRÉ STEPHENS, Deputy General Secretary, MCYL

YET ANOTHER!!!!!!!!
Last week Tuesday, every honest-minded, tax-paying Jamaican must have cringed in his seat from the sick tide in his stomach, watching and listening to revelations by the Leader of the Opposition in parliament that evening that Trafigura, the company contracted by this government to lift and sell oil on behalf of the country, had in fact made a generous ‘donation’ to at least one account set up by Colin Campbell and the PNP for their personal campaigns.

The account balance shows Trafigura lodging $31 million on three separate occasions just before the PNP conference was held and more importantly, right before their contract with the government was due to be renewed. The official PNP response would have us believe that this kind-hearted, charitable organization based in Amsterdam and having no ties to the island except its contract to sell our oil, just wanted to give money to the party for no particular reason. Furthermore, they expect us to believe that the fact that the payment was made just before the PNP ministers decide to renew the contract is a mere coincidence.

TAKING US FOR FOOLS!
How they imagine us to be simplistic idiots willing to accept anything they say, but the sad reality is that there are many who have actually bought it. These are the people who put comrades before country and are as corrupt in thinking as the PNP is in doing! In their embarrassment, the PNP have gone on a smear campaign, maligning those who revealed the truth and threatening to sue the Opposition leader, the newspapers and anyone else who presses the issue. Let us recognize that Trafigura’s only interest in Jamaica is its selling of the oil we get from Nigeria; so its only interest in who forms the government must be related to its interest in Jamaica- OIL!

This company that is so kind to poor Portia and her ministers collects the valuable Nigerian oil worth US$60 a barrel, sells it on our behalf and gets about US$59.88 since we only earn all of 12 cents. With such an arrangement, especially since the company has been losing money from being convicted of crimes in both the US and the Côte d’Ivoire, one can see how Trafigura might feel it has to do what is necessary to keep its contractual arrangement with this PNP government.

MUST RESIGN!
On Sunday, Colin Campbell tendered his resignation as Minister of Information and Development, citing that he should have told the party secretariat about the monies received. This is the party’s futile attempt to dissociate the prime minister and those who staunchly defended Campbell’s actions from the scandal by having them plead ignorance. So they expect us to accept that Campbell unilaterally and without the party’s consent, accepted these monies and moreover, nobody bothered to ask where the money came from for the conference or even looked at the donations! This in itself would show incompetence on the part of the party’s leader and a disregard for her authority.

How many more monies have been sent to the party from questionable sources while Mrs. Simpson-Miller is asleep at its helm; but this, of course, is only if you can believe that she did not know that $31 million had been given to her campaign efforts. Surely the resignation of Campbell alone cannot suffice when, even after the evidence was presented, the PNP still said there was nothing wrong with this sleazy transaction. In any self-respecting democracy, a government caught in this scandal would have to resign, if not by their own doing, then at the behest of the people. As Mr. Golding has said:

“This government has acquired immunity to scandals but there comes a time when enough is enough. That time has come! It is time for this wretched government to go. This one needs no commission of inquiry. It needs no press conferences. It is beyond the scope of damage control. It needs only a simple decision – to do the honourable thing.”


But what if they don’t resign honourably? Then the people shall make them do it for the sake of every Jamaican who has chosen honesty over hanky-panky, probity over pilfering and generation. Let us therefore save Jamaica from itself.


TRAFIGURA AND ITS SCANDALS
Trafigura is a relatively new company (formed 1993) that has had a very eventful record. It was indicted in US Courts in the now infamous Iraq Oil-for-Food scandal, pleaded guilty and was fined US$8 million and ordered to forfeit US$9.9 million of oil shipments which were seized in the Caribbean sea in 2001 and falsely represented to be incompliance with UN Resolution 986. Included in the indictment was an affidavit which said that Trafigura shredded records of the oil purchase and replaced them with false documentation.

Trafigura and the Ivory Coast toxic waste scandal Approximately one month ago Trafigura was implicated in the dumping of tons of toxic waste on the streets of Abidjan, the capital of Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast). Eight persons died as a result and thousands had to receive medical attention. It led to the resignation of the entire Cabinet.

It is clearly not true that honour resides only in Westminster. It obviously resides also in Abidjan. Two senior executives of Trafigura were arrested and charged with poisoning and violation of toxic waste laws and are still in custody.
-as quoted by Bruce Golding