LOCAL Government Minister Noel Arscott, in a radio discussion with the top-class journalists from Nationwide News Network about the Riverton fire, did not convey the idea, certainly to me, that the ministry is in safe and competent hands.

When questioned on many aspects of the Riverton dump site, euphemistically called the 'Riverton landfill', even while the fire was still smouldering, he was quick to declare that it was his view — based on what we must assume, he had either seen or been advised of — that the fire arose by spontaneous combustion.

Immediately on hearing that, alarm bells went off in my head. In the early 1970s when I worked with the local agency of a huge, British-based insurance organisation as an investigator and assessor of damages covered under an insurance policy, I was trained in determining the proximate and most likely causes of fires.

Most of those investigations — a few of which involved business owners torching their own commercial structures either because there was a business downturn for the particular commodity, or the location of the operations had been overtaken by unsavoury elements — involved weeks of probing, site and lab testing, and close contact with police detectives and the fire department.

So the question is, what kind of real-time investigations did the minister have at his fingertips to conclude — so early in this environmental mess of a fire which refuses to die — that the cause was spontaneous combustion, that is, triggered by organic/chemical action that is a feature of dump sites?

Has the minister convinced himself that the fire, which is likely to cost the State (read, taxpayers) at least $50 million, was not deliberately set? Is the minister aware that mounds of soil material was heaped in close proximity to the dump just a few days before the fire 'began', and if so, has he asked himself what could be the reason for that?

Could it have been to easier facilitate the moving of soil and marl to the site in anticipation of a fire and the hiring of trucks to transport said material?

At the time of a fire there in late 2006, a senior field officer (who is no longer there) told me, with fear in his voice, that he had established that the fire had been deliberately set. A day before I was set to write he called and literally begged me not to write that I had been told by anyone that the fire was intentionally set because, he insisted, it would lead to him and his life being be in danger.

At that time, it was established that the fire began at two spots — the eastern end and the western end. In a case of spontaneous combustion it is not more likely that the fire would be generated away from the extremes and more towards the centre of the pile. At that time, it was also determined that 20 of the 100 acres were ablaze.

At that time in 2006, the National Solid Waste Management Authority had estimated that the remaining life of the Riverton dump site would be eight years, meaning that by 2014 they would have to abandon the Riverton site and find an alternative location.

Is Minister Arscott aware that 'sabotage' was suspected in the December 2006 fire, and that a nurse from the Riverton community who was asthmatic died as a result of smoke inhalation?

Another question: Is it possible or likely that those who are presently involved in extinguishing the blaze are not acting with all the dispatch possible, considering that the longer the fire, the bigger the earnings from the environmental disaster?

I am willing to place a bet that investigators will determine that spontaneous combustion was not involved this time around. I am also investing in the dashed hope that anything along those lines will be revealed to the general public.

This Jamaica can be a callous place. To earn money many men will sell their souls, damage the health of thousands of children and adults and go to bed at nights richer and more desperate in their lust for physical wealth. 'Damn the nation' is their mantra as they and their cronies in high places laugh it up over whisky and the good life.

Jittery Government

ALTHOUGH this Administration ought to be given enough time — 100 days honeymoon — to start to act like a cohesive whole, I cannot recall having seen a new team in charge act with so much uncertainty in its early days as the PNP Administration elected on December 29 last year.

Much will be expected of Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell who, it must be said, has been very vocal and visible, and minister of finance Peter Phillips on whose head the success or failure of the Administration will rest.

The prime minister has been silent at a time when her voice ought to out there encouraging the nation, and especially her supporters, that the PNP team is aware of the realities and that she is active as the first among equals heeding the call of the nation.

But, having won, I suppose she can now rest or plan for the next big actions — the local government elections in March and the general election in 2016.

It seems that successive governments, especially the PNP ones, spend so much time chasing elections that actual governance is a side issue.

There is no cohesive action on the Riverton dump situation, the user fee policy at health centres, and the mother of all election promises, JEEP (the Jamaica Emergency Employment Programme). Violent crime seems to have spiralled out of control, and the position adopted by Security Minister Peter Bunting that it is mainly gang-oriented does not make the killings any less of a fact.

Violent murders instil fear in the nation and wherever there is fear it is always accompanied by a downturn in commercial activity.

I have been asked what could be the main reasons for the surge in murders. In advancing speculative reasons I have said that it could be either disgruntled Labourites with criminal urgings acting out their frustrations or criminally inclined PNP supporters energised by the win increasing their activities in a 'fi wi time now, mek wi tek it'.

On the dismantling of the Tivoli crime factory, gunmen with alliances to the JLP were found leaderless and unsure of where to go or who to turn to. JLP party central was in disarray after the election loss, and in any event, one sensed that after the Tivoli incursion there was no love lost between JLP party central and the criminal elements usually associated with it.

In the last elections the JLP could not field any of its lumpen elements to dispatch to constituencies to ensure that any PNP strong-arm tactics would be resisted. I know of one instance in which a PNP candidate, now a new MP, approached a well-known JLP 'semi don' and convinced him that there would be no need for him to visit a certain constituency in the weeks leading up to the election. One suspects that a cash consideration was involved in the 'high-level' talks.

The candidate won, but not before paying off a number of disgruntled Labourites the day before the elections while insisting that they dip their fingers deep in voting ink. The JLP losing candidate became aware of it but the pot was in no position to cuss the kettle. He was simply outwitted at a game that was always played.

Criminals notionally attached to the PNP, or those who have their criminal bases in PNP garrison pockets have, some of them, been given the false impression that the PNP intends to be much softer on crime than the last JLP Administration. They have it so wrong.

Unlike in the days of the 1970s and 1980s, when commissioners of police were little more than proxies of the ruling administration, nothing could be further from the truth with Commissioner Ellington. I have seen no evidence that he allowed his private political views to determine police operations.

Criminals on both sides of the political fence would do well to count the days to their demise. That, of course, is no consolation in a scenario where there exists an overloaded and inefficient justice machinery, still too many pockets of corrupt policing and the lack of any real productive commercial activity and job-producing activities in garrison communities.

What that means is that for every semi don taken out by the police, it makes space for 10 young men in search of a bigger but more destructive idea of themselves. That is always where we seem to be in the fight against and control of criminality.

Can Minister Paulwell afford a LIME failure?

As the telecoms 'war' heats up, the energy minister has been given only a few hours to enjoy his rest as it seems there will be no peace in the telecoms sector until the matter of LIME vis-a-vis Digicel and termination rates is settled.

We are told that in the face-off stiff competition from Digicel, unfair as LIME sees it, LIME is likely to run out of cash in the next six months. Running out of cash means that each day LIME operates where it sees Digicel having an unfair advantage in the termination rates it charges its customers who call LIME, presently about $14 per minute, it will be bleeding cash because the arrangement locks LIME out of competing on a level playing field.

It would seem to me that the next time Minister Paulwell, LIME, Digicel, and the OUR sit down they will have to compromise on a termination rate of about $6 to $7.50 per minute.

I am certain that LIME would prefer an even lower rate. With number portability agreed on in principle, once LIME is given that understanding, the 'level playing field' the company has been seeking would have been arrived at. After that, both LIME and Digicel would compete purely on quality of service.

Minister Paulwell cannot afford to see LIME fold because of the obvious political fallout from loss of jobs and the failure of LIME. In addition, it would place cellphone users at the mercy of the only guy in the roost, Digicel. Competition would be non-existent.

A worse-case scenario would be the folding of LIME, it happening under a PNP Administration which has promised jobs (under JEEP), and later on the possible opening up of the market to another player which would get the very rates that LIME was demanding.

What would the minister have as the excuse for not having granted LIME what was being sought?

It suits Minister Paulwell to broker a deal that would see a lowering of rates. The phone-talking population would sing his praises and politically it would add pluses to the PNP jitters.

There can be no reason why this deal cannot be brokered, Minister Paulwell.

observemark@gmail.com

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