Who Will Save Bruce From The Bullies?

Funny how the Prime Minister can declare that the guvament will not be bullied. Hilarious when you look at recent interviews with him wherein he threatened to cut jobs if the guvament paid workers don’t stop demanding their contractually agreed on pay increase. Hell how he denied teachers their back pay with the lament; “We don’t have the money!”.

Congratulations on being flexible enough to repeal some of the stupid tax measures recently introduced, we know it hard, we know you need as much money as possible to get on with the business of the country.

However I would like to ask the guvament this: We don’t have any money you say, but you can find the money for not one or two labor day projects but three, how come?

Also, do you not think it looks very suspicious  that these projects are in constituencies where the members of parliament are facing challenges to their citizenship, and by extension their right to sit in parliament, will probably face a buy-election (like the well purchased one Vaz won), and are all JLP?

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You don’t have the money to pay teachers, police or civil servants, but to help protect your slim majority in parliament, you will find it to fund your pork barreled endeavours.

You will not be bullied!

No one in your circle of friends could ever survive on the pittance you pay the police, yet you demand they do.

You will not be bullied!

In the event of police “industrial action”, you have the military on stand-by. I suppose your intent is to have somebody safeguarding law and order, but it sounds more of a veiled threat to the police.

You will not be bullied!

You raise taxes, freeze wages, threaten to cut jobs (which you are still going to do) in order to get the underpaid people  to back down, to “tek wha dem get”.

You will not be bullied!

Meanwhile, rumblings in the Ministry of Mining and Energy are that James the Foul-Mouthed is busy cleaning house, kicking people out of their jobs to fill them with party loyalists.

He will not be bullied!

Traitor-to-the-trade-unions has declared war on gangs, declaring that “Gangs must be crushed!”.

We would love it if he indeed was not bullied, and that he does what he sets out to do, but since the bullies in the JCF won’t get their pay then it is difficult to see how much if any lasting effect your plans will have on crime in this country.

The guvament is going to ask these very underpaid men and women to risk their lives, even more than they currently do to fix the crime in society.

If I was a member of the constabulary I would quit.

$40,000 a month is not enough to face violent gangs, not enough to help my family, now, or if I die in the line of duty. Not enough to ensure my dedication to the job.

In fact, it is just the right amount at which the criminal element  may successfully bribe me.

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The criminals “bully” the country, the people who should be “bullying” the criminals are being “bullied” by Bruce, which makes us all buggered.

Back Pay Is Not An Increase

Guvament has been hinting, for months now, that they can’t afford to pay an increase in the wage bill, and in these hard economic times, we understand that.

We do.

But their stance on these matters seems to always involve threatening the parties requesting the increase.

tek what we give you or you lose your work!

Why must that sentiment be the first thing out of their mouths at all times?

And though people ought to be paid better, that isn’t what upsets me today.

What upsets me is the treatment to teachers, not that they aren’t getting an increase, but that they aren’t getting their back pay.

Money due them.

Money promised to them by the guvament.

Another promise broken.

But I want to go further! And I hope I don’t get myself into too deep a trouble today. I want to say that Mrs. Allwood-Anderson has publicly stated that the take-home pay of nurses ought to be doubled, and I want to publicly support that position. ~Pearnel Charles (before election)

To reiterate: This is not a request for an increase, this is money due them, that was promised to them, that in all fairness they should get!

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Police are underpaid, and for the pittance they get I can understand why so many of them are corrupt.

Doctors are being asked to treat an explosion in the number of patients since “Free Healthcare”, their workload has shot thru the roof, and yet they are expected to make do with the pittance given to them.

When teachers leave the country to go teach elsewhere there is a hue and cry among the people lamenting the “brain drain”, (in addition to the many university trained graduates who seek greener pastures). Teeth are gnashed, gritted and ground over the shortage of teachers in some areas, and the size of the classes in others. Teachers sometimes work in some very deplorable conditions, but they do their work none the less.

Many math teachers, have not passed the subject themselves

Sure their are teachers who are either under qualified or incompetent,in the subjects they teach, but the idea of annual evaluations needs to become policy. And many a time on the news in the evenings, teachers and principals speak in the most cringe inducing attempt at English possible.

Those should go.

But for the qualified, the hard working, the dedicated among them, the ones that leaves an impression on their students long after being taught by them, it is time they are suitably awarded that which is due them.

Only a batty-hole would say otherwise.

Not a Deck of Cards

Granted the performance of the guvament is not up to the expectations of the Jamaican people, granted we are in some deep shit now, but reshuffling the ministries is only wasting more money. Money the country can ill afford to waste on cabinet.

Movement of personnel and furniture.

Renting of office space.

Destroying and recreation of all new stationery to reflect the current make up of the guvament.

Closing and opening bank accounts to reflect the make up of the ministries.

Purchasing computers, servers and other devices and appliances to outfit these offices.

Contracting for Information Technology/Communication services for these offices to function.

And if there are more Ministries then it also means that the size of the civil service will grow by the necessary amount, and that means more salaries to pay.

Already the eediat budget they read in April has proven to be inadequate, already the guvament is having difficulty paying teachers what was promised and even attempted to take away from nurses rather than add to their salary as promised before elections.

If you are going to waste money by reshuffling, I would rather see it going to pay the nation’s educators and health care professionals and not wasted on the whims of the Bruce and his cronies.

In fact, Audley and Derrick need no longer draw salary from our taxes, rather these deadweights along with the other dead weights need to be removed.

And as was said in the very first post on this blog, leave the damned portfolios as they are, if you going to change anything, change the minister.

Less hassle and waste that way.

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Air Jamaica, UDC, Cabinet, maybe the guvament is not a deck of cards, but a house of cards…