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EVERY YEAR IN this country of ours there are the same old cries whenever the hurricane season rolls in. "We need money to clean the drains". Portland has got a head start on the field by declaring that it needs roughly $40 million to clean its drains so as to prevent flooding in the event of heavy rains like those associated with hurricanes.
Now, there are several issues here that I have with this drain-cleaning thing. Year after year, drains right across Jamaica are blocked primarily by people throwing garbage into them. That is a habit that can be stopped by initiating simple law enforcement.
DISCIPLINE PROBLEM
We know we have a problem with discipline in Jamaica. People throw garbage any and everywhere, they pee in the middle of the street and in alleyways behind buildings, stinking the place up to high heaven. We know this, so why don't we do something about it?
There is a whole bunch of policemen who everyday do absolutely nothing except sit around and waste Government's gas going to look for their and other men's girlfriends. I mean, its Portland, what else is there to do?
Why don't we send them out to do foot patrols and look out for people breaking the almost 'invisible' anti-litter law.
However, before that the law would be amended to exact a fine of say $100,000 or 60 days in prison for littering. If the person who litters is unable to pay the fine, then during those 60 days in custody they can, at Her Majesty's leisure, clean the drains that they had been helping to litter. I just feel like this little adjustment would work.
The trick is to get the policemen to enforce the law and not take bribes. But sting operations could help solve that and guilty cops would also be put to work cleaning the drains before being dismissed from the force.
In parishes like Kingston and St. Andrew where costs to clean clogged drains would be even higher, the solution would be even simpler.
CHAINED INMATES
At the top of Camp Road, we have a few thousand men and women living at Government's expense who do very little each day save for driving up and down in jeeps and starching their clothes. Further down the road on Tower Street there are a few more thousand men who pretty much spend their time trying to kill each other or trying to develop a sexual taste for male flesh. Why not give both groups something worthwhile to do.
Put some chains on some of those inmates at the Tower Street Correctional Centre and have a few hundred soldiers from Camp watch over them while they clean the drains. I am sure in both instances, in Portland and in Kingston and St. Andrew, it would cost much less than $40 million to clear those channels of debris.
In fact, come to think of it, I am sure if Government would make use of those 'idle hands' in the island's lock-ups, those inmates would not have much energy in the nights to be raping and killing their fellow inmates, they'd be too exhausted to do anything but sleep.
The other thing is that the money they save the state, could be used to provide better conditions for them during their stay in the penal institutions.
You see, it all works out. We just need to find ways in which to use what we have more efficiently.
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