“Jamaica’s Environment is Ripe” for Reducing Corruption – Jeanette Calder
Jeanette Calder, civil society advocate and Executive Director of the Jamaica Accountability Meter Portal (JAMP) has argued that the present environment in Jamaica, aided by enabling legislation, press freedom and a robust system of oversight agencies, parliamentary oversight committees and the persistent agitation by civil society, makes for a “ripe environment” to tackle the scourge of corruption impacting the country.
“I am not talking about political will, I have a theory that whatever becomes public will translate into political will,” she asserted, adding that, “anything that we are going to do to correct corruption is going to be worth our time and energy.” Cost of corruption here …
Miss Calder was delivering the 6th annual Joan Duncan Memorial Lecture hosted by the Joan Duncan School of Entrepreneurship, Ethics and Leadership (JDSEEL) at the University of Technology, Jamaica in collaboration with the JMMB Joan Duncan Foundation, on Wednesday, May 29, 2019 at the university’s Papine Campus.
Defining corruption simply as “the abuse of public office for private benefit or gain,” the Civil Society Advocate shared examples of poor governance at play in several national institutions. She pointed to some of these cases uncovered by Auditor General Reports dating back from as far as 1967.
Among the examples cited by Calder is the Ports Authority of Jamaica, which reported has not submitted any financial statements for 23 years and no evidence that its audit committee has ever met. Also cited by Calder was the 2017 finding that a senior officer at the Institute of Sports had benefitted from three pensions valued at J$120,000, J$56.2 million and US$554K - all while in receipt of gratuity totaling J$31.33 million. She also called out cases of reported poor governance at the National Insurance Fund, the National Water Commission (NWC) and the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF).
Ms. Calder told the large gathering of educators, students and a host of persons from the private and public sector, non-governmental representatives and representatives of civic groups, that current data estimates that corruption is costing Jamaica upwards of 5 – 10% of GDP or about J$94.6 billion annually, using the conservative figure of 5% of Jamaica’s GDP.
“Just imagine what we could do with that money?” she questioned, “with just half of that money we could build schools and hospitals… I can’t imagine what this country would be like.”
Technology Solution
In advancing some concrete solutions to reducing corruption, Ms. Calder gave a sneak peak of a new technology-based digital accountability tool box innovation being developed by JAMP to empower ordinary citizens of Jamaica to access the information they need to participate in the accountability and governance framework, in support of Jamaica’s growth and development. The tool for example will point users to the names of accountable officers in government and public sector institutions and provide updates on the status of corrective measures being taken to address breaches.
In his remarks, Dr. Haldane Johnson, AVP, Teaching and Learning, University of Technology, Jamaica, who represented University President, UTech, Professor Stephen Vasciannie, said that the university is in “solidarity with all efforts to strengthen public participation in eliminating corruption in all forms and sectors of society.” He noted that UTech, Jamaica and JMMB has had a long and productive relationship which dates back to 2000 with the establishment of the Joan Duncan Chair at the University to conduct research in the area of finance and ethics.
In 2010 through an endowment fund from the JMMB, the Joan Duncan School of Entrepreneurship Ethics and Leadership was established as the first school of its kind in the English-Speaking Caribbean to offer a specialised Bachelor of Science degree in Entrepreneurship.
Mrs. Patricia Sutherland, Chairman, JMMB Joan Duncan Foundation, in her remarks noted that it will require the support from the Jamaican citizenry through partnerships with agencies such as JAMP “to create the kinds of organizations that do the research to give information that can help us make better decisions and create the right kinds of institutions to help us fix the institutions that we have created,” she said.
The Joan Duncan Memorial Lecture honours the vision, mission and passion of the late corporate leader and JMMB co-founder, Joan Duncan, for whom the Joan Duncan School of Entrepreneurship, Ethics land Leadership has been named.