Jamaicans lives at risk; Water Security problems

The yallahs pipe line was recently shut down by a group of casual workers ( not NWC permanent employees) for non payment of certain monies for over a year, according to those involved. While that was bad in and of itself, it was what the workers said and what the cameras showed that was even more frightening.

The protesters showed open area where water flowed in the system and said dead animals etc can be or have been found/thrown in  or can be thrown in or any other foreign body or material thus putting the lives of hundreds of thousands at risk.

Surprisingly, I  have heard nothing from civil society, the medical or engineering profession on the safety and security of the water supply system, which can pose a serious risk to our health.

I would like someone to explain to the country, how on earth can a group of temporary can shut down the city’s main water supply system and its  business as usual as if nothing happened, this is freaking scary.

I expect to hear from the Minister of Water, Health and National Security on what systems will be put in place to ensure the nations water supply system is secured !

I am still in shock at what happened and the seemingly indifference of both the public and those in authority to this rather very serious matter.

The JLP is about to implode, nasty email trail !

The JLP has set about on a very destructive path that seems set to destroy the party from within and virtually eliminate the party’s chances of seeing an electoral victory for some time to come.

The party seems unable to get its act together and it is very clear that there are serious internal matters that the party appears unable to resolve.

The most recent actions by the party leader, Andrew Holness to take the matter of the senate undated letter of resignation to the constitutional courts has caught both the members of the public as well as party officials by surprise.  News has emerged that some senior party officials only became aware of the filing of the appeal, when it was reported by the media, which a clear sign of the dysfunctional nature of the opposition JLP.

Andrew Holness does not appear to trust members of his own party and some party officials  do not appear to trust Holness either and have been expressing that view given this latest surprise move he has chosen to taken.

Now Babsy Grange in trying to keep a lid on the situation sends a email to party members asking them to refrain from speaking to the media,  yet that very email advising them keep quiet was leaked to the very media she was advising them about, now how ironic is that.

Andrew Holness clearly does not have the moral authority to lead the party and the JLP needs to seriously consider a total remake and reshaping of the party as they are not in a position to be even considered a good opposition vs being ready to take over leadership of the country.

What a mess once again in the JLP , as like dogs, they have sh#t in the public and left it for the entire nation to see.

See email trail below

Grange : “You are asked to refrain from making comments to the press as this matter is a legal issue and the attorneys will provide any clarification needed.”

Montague :: “At no time during the last Standing Committee meeting this was discussed,” he said. “I chaired the meeting. It is dishonest so to suggest.”

“We as officers must be careful how we place persons in an uncomfortable position. I have been receiving many calls from the press, Standing Committee and Central Executive members. I cannot allow this misrepresentation of the facts to stand.”

“Kindly take the needed steps to have the matter correctly communicated to all (whom) you have mislead.”

He said that while he agreed with Grange on the matter of public silence

“I cannot allow you to mislead the officers and members of the party … this correction must be done immediately.”

Montague also chastised Grange for breaching party protocol.

“Furthermore, you did not discuss with me this release,” he said. “Please do not in future do this … ; if you had done what is established and right, we would not be here. Please have this matter corrected. Thank you.”

In her email dispatched to spokespersons yesterday, Grange said:

“See release below, for your information. Please note that Standing Committee was briefed on this matter on Monday, February 23, 2015.”

However, Dr Horace Chang, the party’s general secretary, was quick to refute Grange’s claim in a follow-up email.

Dr Horace Chang :”Correct guidance but the matter was not discussed,” he stated in a terse response.

It was at this point that Grange backtracked, admitting that she was not present at the Standing Committee meeting.

Grange “Unfortunately, I was unavoidably absent from [the] Standing Committee on Monday, but I was advised that Standing Committee was briefed.”Thank you for the correction. I am, however, still asking that persons refrain from commenting on the matter in the media at this time,”

Is Andrew Holness a lunatic?

Why appeal a ruling that you have accepted . he cannot be trusted

Lime network crashes

Lime network has collapsed, with most customers being unable to make calls at this point in time.

We hope these issues will be resolved shortly

Consumers needs to be wary of used car dealers.

I am alarmed at what is now taking place in the used car market and its time consumers take a serious look at who they decide to spend money with. In recent times we have heard of used car dealers selling vehicles up to four years older than they really are to unsuspecting customer, resulting in major headaches for customer should they have an accident or seeking a valuation done on their car.

There is another very disturbing trend, which has always been there but has gotten worse and that is “clocking”.  What happens in this case is the odometer is adjusted to show lower mileage than the vehicle actually travels, which then increases the value it can fetch for the dealers involved ( importer and exporter).

There have been cases for example where up to 100,000 km have been removed from the odometer reading leaving a car which had a real mileage of 137,000 km, with just 37,000 km.

Recently I went to a used car lot looking at vehicles and came across a 2007 model used car that was already been driven in Jamaica. I checked the mileage which showed just 37,000 km and said to the sales person, that mileage cannot be correct. The person said ” the vehicle was only being driven around kingston, hence the low mileage”.

Let’s therefore explore this.

Given the rules, this vehicle had to have been imported in 2012 which is two year ago and let’s assume it was on the lot for a year, it would have been sold sometime in 2013.

The average vehicle in Japan and most developed countries travel at least 10,000 miles or 16,000 km per year. It would therefore mean that this vehicle before coming to Jamaica in 2012 would have been driven for close 5 years and would have clocked around 90,000  km.

Let’s assume this vehicle was driven for 10,000 km per year in Jamaica, that would add another 20,000 km, which would bring the total mileage to 110,000 km, yet this vehicle only registered 37,000 km.

It is very clear to be that used car dealers here in Jamaica are colluding with those in Japan to cheat the Jamaican consumer and customers may want to reconsider their relationship with used car dealers.

I would at this time recommend that those in the market for cars either go to the local car dealers to get a new car or use these very dealers, who are now moving into “certified used car” business.

A visit to the local car dealers is really not so bad afterall and I see more and more people heading in this direction given the good deals the are offering.

Toyota Jamaica is now offering one year free service on the purchase of a new car and three years warranty. Stewart AutoSales is offering one year free service on its cars with extended warranty as well as in-house financing and will actually trade in your used vehicle for a new one.

I would recommend that people take a serious look at engaging the authorized dealers vs dealing with the crooks posing at used car dealers.

Bless

UWI Mona telephone contact experience

For the top flight learning institution in the Caribbean, the University of the West Indies Mona campus needs to do a tremendous amount of work to improve its customer service, which I would classify as being extremely poor at best.

I spent the better part of two hrs today trying to make contact with the folks at the University and I must tell you the experience was one of sheer frustration.

Calls to every number I rang, went unanswered most of the time and when someone actually answered the phone, they were not in a position to assist you in finding whomever you were looking for and in most cases could not provide a telephone.

On one occasion a young lady answered the phone and sounded like she was on life support and barely hanging on. Almost every question asked was met with the following response ” that person no longer works in this department”.

I then ask ” who worked in that department that I can speak with apart from you”, she gave me a name then went unto explain that the individual  was not available as they were at lunch.

A visit to the UWI website showing the contact  listing  for certain areas was completely outdated, with  names of people who no longer worked in those departments and numbers which lime indicated were no longer in service.

UWI Mona needs to get its act together and as a institution of higher learning, needs to teach it staff what customer service is all about.

At time of writing and three hours after the first contact I still have not been able to speak to anyone from the department I was hoping to get and I frankly have given up for the day

Fitch issues upgrade for Jamaica

Fitch Ratings-New York-19 February 2015: Fitch Ratings has affirmed Jamaica’s long-term foreign and local currency Issuer Default Ratings (IDRs) at ‘B-‘. The issue ratings on Jamaica’s senior unsecured foreign and local currency bonds are also affirmed at ‘B-‘. The Rating Outlooks on the long-term IDRs are revised to Positive from Stable. The Country Ceiling is affirmed at ‘B’ and the short-term foreign currency IDR at ‘B’.

https://www.fitchratings.com/creditdesk/press_releases/detail.cfm?pr_id=980058

What is the value of a MBA ?

The cost of a MBA could run you between $1.6 – $3m depends on where you do it ie in Jamaica or some university overseas, but what is the real value that one should see coming from someone who possess an MBA.

Apart from landing you a better job which pays more than someone with a First degree, what value does an employee with a MBA adds to the organization.  Such a person should be in a position to bring new management skills to the organization and should be in a position to implement best practices to ensure the organization flourishes in terms of efficiency improvements, ethical practices and conduction, increased levels of productivity etc.

MBA graduates are said to be equipped to take the organizations to the next level and have all the tools so so do, so what has gone wrong in Jamaica.

Why have we not seen an improvement in the way we do business, an improvement in productivity, greater employee engagement, improved ethical practices here in Jamaica ?

Are we therefore simply equipping people to be able to earn more without any increased levels of efficiency to support the “more”.

One of the first steps most senior managers take to control or cut cost is to get rid of low paying jobs in what is called restructuring or cost containment. So we hire these new high paid managers and what they end up doing to terminating employees to give the impression that the organization is earning more, with no real improvement int he fundamental operations of the business.

I am not trying to lay the blame at the feet of the MBA people, but I am suggesting instead that if we are to use education to move this country forward, then those who possess this higher level of education MUST begin to contribute more and in a meaningful way.

I would like to see however more technical and competent people being trained in our educational system, so this country can start  creating wealth.

I am beginning once again to see the very same things that led to the financial meltdown in the 1990’s as our major banks are swimming in billions of dollars in cash, but no real wealth is being generated in the country. This means this is situation unsustainable and will led to a fallout in the coming years as one cannot keep on making profits, for which their is no sound base on which this is being generated.

What ends up happening is staff are made redundant to “cut cost”, increase user fees, charge for even “free service”  so as to  improve the bottom line in order to continue  to show improved profits, but as I said, this is unsustainable .

Jamaica has to manufacture its way to prosperity, there is no other way !

Tivoli Commission of Enquiry is a money pit !

I struggle to contain my anger at what passes for COE in Jamaica and the results or lack thereof that has emanated from every one of these enquiries.

There is one sure outcome and it is that the Commissioners and lawyers have been handsomely rewarded and paid their due sums of “hard earned” cash. The Jamaican public however have been left feeling empty as there is typically just a long report at the end of the process and nothing to address the issues that led to a COE being formed in the first place.

In this enquiry thus far, former Prime Minister spent almost 4 days on the stand and NOTHING new came from him. What we heard was a rehash of the very same information, which came from the Mannatt-Dudus COE. Former National Security Minister, Dwight Nelson is currently now on the stand and what I am hearing is once again a repeat of the Mannatt-Dudus enquiry.

The people of TG lied through their teeth all the way, never willing to speak the truth despite the persistence of the lawyers.

So when all of this has ended, I am sure what we will get is a 1000 page report and the Commissioner and Counsel will walk away with a combined total sum of just over $300m and nothing would have been achieved from this process to change the way we address matters like this in the future.

What happened in TG could have been easily predicted, given the way the security forces deals with people who they confront on a daily basis.

The Jamaican security forces kills on average 140 Jamaicans each year, which is twice the amount of people that were killed in Tivoli Gardens and that is EVERY YEAR!

The question that must therefore be answered and for which we DO NOT need a commission of Enquiry is

” Why does the security forces in Jamaica kill so many Jamaicans ?”.

The answer to the above question will give allow us to

1. Devise strategies to kill less of our people
2. Devise operations that will see less forceful confrontation
3. Devise new rules of engagement between the security forces and civilians
4. Change the training program of the police force
5. Create new tactical forces fully equipped to handle security issues without the need for military
6. Provide the security forces with aerial support to help coordinate surgical strikes using minimal force to reduce causalities
7. Restructuring of some of our communities with the removal of zinc fences and creation of proper road network to reduce possibility of cops being ambushed in some of these improvised communities.
8. Address the social infrastructure which leads to some of the issues highlighted above

There has been many reports covering most of what I mention above, so what is really needed is the political will to implement these actions.

The COE is really a money pit .

National Security Interest Personal Property Securities Registry, is too much information?

Alarm bells were ringing last Friday, when it was revealed that peoples personal information was being made available to the the following website  https://www.nsippregistry.gov.jm/index.aspx.

The concerns were that way too much information was being made available to the general public and peoples security could be at risk, so the obvious question is what is my opinion.

Well, I am well aware that in the USA where our Jamaica politicians love to purchase property most of what is contained in the SIPP in Jamaica is actually available. I will point readers to the Broward Country Property appraisers website, which I have displayed on this site more that once in fact I will show you the link from 4 years ago to this sort of information.

https://commonsenseja.wordpress.com/2010/10/03/politicians-purchasing-usa-homes/

As you can see from the link you can get a vast amount of information about our own people who purchase homes in the Florida area

That is just an example of the kind of information that is available on Jamaicans who have property interest in the Florida area, the information is publicly available.

Mark Golding information Property in Broward County

http://www.bcpa.net/RecInfo.asp?URL_Folio=514024AA0880

Has Mark Golding paid his property taxes.

https://www.broward.county-taxes.com/public/real_estate/parcels/514024AA08

Given the above does the Jamaica website have too much information ?