Our former Minister of Local Government, and our new Madam Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller, has appointed Deloitte Touche tax services specialist Ethlyn Norton-Coke to chair the scandal ridden National Solid Waste Management Authority (NSWMA) formerly chaired by PJ crony Alston Stewart.

Talk about confidence boosting measures ! While I’m glad God is on her side, having Ethlyn Norton-Coke overseeing the NSWMA really makes PM Portia look like she’s getting serious with corruption.

This was the sort of move urged on her by the members of the chattering classes last year. At the time, many thought the exposure of the scandal within her Ministry would disqualify her from making a serious bid for the leadership of the PNP.

She got rid of Alston Stewart and his hear-no-evil-see-no-evil-me-no-evil Board, but no confidence building moves followed. Instead Prakash Vaswani was put in as Chairman and Errol Greene as President to calm the comrades fainting at the thought of the NSWMA gravy train running dry coming to a halt.

That was clearly a move dictated by the Patterson camp, who showed perhaps-more-than-the-necessary-loyalty in putting up with the depredations of Alston Stewart who had bankrupted his successful radio station in the 90’s by firing government critics Wilmot Perkins, Anthony Abrahams and Beverley Anderson-Manley, all of whom took their money making talk shows to make money elsewhere. ( Does anyone even remember the name of that radio station ?……I don’t. )

“All the King’s Men” (Robert Penn Warren)

“Police and Crime Control in Jamaica: Problem of Reforming Ex-Colonial Constabularies” (Anthony Harriott)

“Jamaica Genesis : Religion and the Politics of Moral Orders” (Diane J. Austin-Broos)
[posted with ecto]

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