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After Media Revelations, Jamaicans Ask Why Their Finance Minister Cannot Manage His Phone Bill

Categories: Caribbean, Jamaica, Citizen Media, Economics & Business, Media & Journalism, Politics
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Photo of a BlackBerry by Bill Dickinson; CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

The temperature in Jamaica's capital city of Kingston has “tun up” in more ways than one recently. It has been a stressful week in Jamaican politics — and Finance Minister Audley Shaw has been feeling the heat. It's all to do with phone bills.

Television Jamaica and its sister radio station broke the news [2] that Shaw had racked up a phone bill of over J$8 million (approximately US$63,000) in one year (February 2016 to March 2017). Media houses obtained details of the phone bills of several government ministers through the Access to Information Act [3], although not all ministries responded to their request.

Jamaicans responded to the news swiftly on social media and radio talk shows, with a mixture of disbelief, anger, confusion and cynicism:

Prime Minister Andrew Holness reacted speedily, calling an emergency Cabinet meeting to discuss the matter and ordering an audit [8]of his ministers’ phone bills.

The media and public immediately pointed out that, as the man in charge of Jamaica's finances, it was of particular concern that Shaw was apparently so careless and showed poor judgment. A newspaper editorial [9] emphasised his specific responsibility:

Audley Shaw is the finance minister for Jamaica, a low middle-income developing country, whose per capita GDP is a little over US$5,000 and about a fifth of the population lives below the poverty line. Further, he presides over a fiscal austerity programme aimed at a lasting downward shift in the trajectory of the country's high debt and the stability of the macro-economy. The public's acceptance of, and confidence in, these often painful policies, is helped if they perceive that those who design and enforce them also bear the burden of their implementation.

Civil society activist Carol Narcisse tweeted:

Another asked the minister (who is quite active on Twitter):

On Facebook, an overseas-based Jamaican had more questions [14]:

So when will Audley Shaw look in the mirror and say to the person looking back at him: ‘You have no credibility to be the finance minister in Miss Mary bruk dung fowl coop much less…?’ I wonder if he owns a mirror or should I Fedex him one? Really? Is there a need to equivocate here?

Roughly translated, the post is telling the minister that he has no credibility to be the finance minister even in something as simple as ‘Miss Mary's broken down chicken coop’, furthermore the country.

‘Mr Shaw must be fully aware…that roaming…attracts exorbitant fees’

The minister himself was contrite:

He pointed to the high cost of roaming:

Columnist Michael Abrahams argued the minister's explanation wasn't enough [20]:

Mr Shaw is a man who has in politics for a long time. He has been Minister of Finance before and has a lot of experience with traveling. By now, Mr Shaw must be fully aware of the fact that roaming, especially data roaming, attracts exorbitant fees, and ought to be cognizant of measures which can be taken to minimize phone bills […]

Eight million dollars can buy a new car. I drive a decent car, and that money could have paid for my car and given me enough change to pay school fees for my youngest child (who will be entering grade one) annually until he completes GSAT [Grade Six Achievement Test (GSAT), Jamaica's national high school entrance test]. In a country where children in some schools are forced to use pit latrines, this is scandalous.

If we truly desire a better Jamaica, we must put aside the partisan nonsense that still persists in our country and call a spade a spade. How can you trust a man to mange the finances of our country when he is so lax in managing his own affairs, especially when their consequences affect our pockets?

Supporters ‘turn themselves into pretzels trying to justify’ the bills

Many political supporters and members of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party attempted to mitigate the public relations damage done by suggesting that one can get “caught out” by local telephone companies’ exorbitant roaming fees. One government senator described Shaw as the “victim” [21] of the telecom's company's “reckless business practices”.

Even former Prime Minister Bruce Golding noted in a letter to the editor [22]:

I am in no position to defend Minister Shaw's ‘outrageous’ phone bill since I don't have all the facts, but it would be useful to get a breakdown of the charges.

I had a bad experience last November when, after attending a two-day conference in Beijing, my next monthly bill was over $360,000.

It is important to find out how much of Minister Shaw's bills are attributable to data roaming charges which may not have been due to manual data activities. The fairness of these charges is a moot issue. Interestingly, just last month, the European Union placed a ban on data roaming charges within the EU.

Broadcast journalist Dionne Jackson Miller commented:

Another Twitter user was upset at the obviously partisan nature of some of the comments:

But one young politician from the opposition People's National Party saw the humorous side:

A need for ‘internal checks and balances’

The revelations raised serious questions about accountability and transparency. Many questioned the inner workings of the ministry, asking who had approved and paid the stunningly high monthly bills. In the Jamaican political system, the chief civil servant or permanent secretary (in the case of this ministry, the financial secretary) is responsible for the financial state of each government department.

Dr. Marcia Forbes, herself a former permanent secretary, questioned:

Susan Goffe tweeted while watching a television current affairs programme devoted to the issue:

Entrepreneur Latoya West-Blackwood shared:

“Red money” is how Jamaicans refer to small change.

Another tweeted:

Now the minister is facing even more pressure after reports that [32] he negotiated a discount with the telephone company. One journalist tweeted:

An aggrieved tweeter (one of many) observed:

The scandal comes just three years after Arnaldo Brown, a former junior minister in the previous People's National Party administration, was hauled over the coals [37] for a phone bill of J$1 million (a little under US$8,000).

And on the other side of the Caribbean, Trinidadians also had a sense of “deja vu” [38]. One tweeted: