The National Security Policy for Jamaica 2012
The taxpayer is being cheated twice; as corrupt politicians and criminals collude in the theft of public funds, and the infrastructure that results is often far more expensive as a result, and badly-built (or not built at all). In some of the worst cases, Ministers have colluded to the extent of overriding their own departmental rules, or assisted in the intimidation of their own civil servants, in order to ensure that the funds went to the criminal boss. Some politicians may be primarily concerned to get re-elected; others to get rich at the expense of the public, but others may be too scared to speak out against the criminality of their colleagues, because they fear for their lives and the lives of their families. Another, less-direct route involves placing contractors under pressure to take on unnecessary labour. About 80% of all major construction projects in Jamaica come via the government, so all major contractors understand the need to maintain good relations with the party in power, and some are particularly close to the key decisionmakers in one or both of the two main parties. If a contractor is awarded a large contract, he may then be expected to take on additional labour from other organizations that are affiliated to the party in power. This often takes the form of providing site 'security', construction materials and casual labour, all of which will come with an additional overhead. This means that the construction is significantly more expensive than it should have been; the difference is the cost of extortion, corruption and political favouritism. So Jamaica has paid a quadruple price for this era, in terms of: The loss of legitimate businesses, which could not compete with those who were politically-favoured. Lost economic development, investment and prosperity. A legacy of poor-quality infrastructure.
The growth of gangs that continue to dominate many areas. The political parties in Jamaica no longer sanction violence, and the level of political violence has fallen markedly since the 1980s, but the gangs have remained and diversified into a broad spectrum of criminal activities, including fraud, extortion and trafficking weapons and narcotics. Technological progress has been an increasingly significant factor, as this has created new opportunities for crime, such as identity theft, various forms of internet fraud and the Lottery scam; the latter has allowed criminals in Jamaica to defraud citizens of other countries, sometimes repeatedly. The Lottery scam is estimated to generate some US$300 million per annum, which, if correct, means that fraud is now one of Jamaica's largest export industries2.
The impact of crime on the economy Violence and corruption in Jamaica have deterred inward investment, destroyed capital formation and discouraged business development; some urban areas have been reduced to derelict lots as businesses have been bankrupted by extortion. This reflects the impacts of both crime and the fear of crime. For example, the Transparency
Jamaica’s largest legitimate sources of foreign exchange (data from 2010 and 2011) are remittances (US$1.8 billion), tourism (US$880 million), and mining and quarrying (US$135 million), indicating that fraud is now Jamaica’s third largest source of foreign exchange. As the Lottery scam funds are usually imported via wire transfer, it is likely that the national income from remittances also includes a significant contribution from fraud, money-laundering and tax evasion. 2
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