Jordan's sticky wicket

Jordan’s sticky wicket

Oct 11, 2018 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The Stabroek News has received a broadside from the Minister of Finance. The minister, responding to a recent editorial by that newspaper, threw a tantrum, flaying left, right and center in a letter published in some of the other dailies.
The Stabroek News is capable of defending its editorial comments about a “bumbling” and “incompetent” government and about the less than exemplary performance by the Ministry of Finance. The Minister was obviously irked. He came out firing on all cylinders.
What he does not realize is that most of his cylinders were backfiring and he is likely to find himself on the back foot, rather than moving forward, when his letter is scrutinized by the numerous experts we have and when his analyses are ripped to shreds in the days ahead.
The newspaper which came in the line of Minister’s fire is capable to defending itself. It certainly does not need any help in that area. But it can rest assured that it will receive more help than is necessary.
You can bet your bottom dollar that in the days ahead, the Minister’s comments are going to be dissected and deconstructed.
There are persons, some more expert than others, who are itching to respond to the Minister’s letter. They will be lining up to respond through the letter pages of the newspapers.
The Minister should not blame anyone other than himself if he finds himself under bombardment, in the letter pages, in the days ahead. He went overboard in his criticisms of the Stabroek News.
There are some things which were said which will be assessed for subliminal messages.
What possible reason, for example, did the Minister have for stating that the Stabroek News is owned by a wealthy family?
This is going to be construed as an attack on the rich. The fact that the owners of Stabroek News are wealthy seems to have little relevance because all private newspapers are often owned by the rich and wealthy. Working class people do not own newspapers. The Minister may have exposed more than he intended by that reference.
The Minister also ill-advisedly charges that the Stabroek News is a megaphone for the private sector many of whom members became rich through illicit acts. Well! Well! How does the Minister establish a link between the editorial criticisms of his “bumbling” government and the private sector?
It was just a few weeks ago, that the Minister was seen sitting around a table seemingly in good spirits with the representative organization of the private sector? Did he tell them then that some of their members had become obscenely rich because of corrupt schemes, massive tax evasion and nefarious activities under the PPPC?
The private sector must have thought, following that meeting with the Minister that it had finally found a friend in the government. It might have to think twice about that viewpoint if it did feel that way.
The Minister, of course, was not painting the entire private sector with the same brush. But one has to question why in the first place there was any need for any painting at all.
The government’s record was under attack.
The government should have found ways of defending that record without resort to saying that the Stabroek News is a megaphone for the private sector.
Even if that is so, what does the Stabroek News editorial have to do with the private sector?
The Minister has left his flank badly exposed. He hardly has a stellar record to defend. He inherited one of the best batting pitches which any government every inherited but now is trying to suggest that it is sticky wicket.
And on top of that he makes some comments which is likely, whether he intended it or not, to place him at odds with the engine of economic growth: the private sector.

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