The Company We Keep

This appeared in the Trinidad Guardian a few days ago. You can interpret the meaning of AJ being overweight.
The Air Jamaica History can be seen here

In 2008 this article appeared in the Gleaner Air Jamaica Bankrupt

In 2007 the newly elected Government, made it clear that it intended to divest Air Jamaica. Why would anyone try to sell an entity such as a national carrier? The simple answer is overweight. No Government could continue to subsidize an entity to the tune of $30 to $50 million per year. The is just plain wrong and insidious.

Fast forward to 2010 and the government has to go begging to the IMF. The IMF has placed certain condition(s) (usual and expected), one of which is the divestment of Air Jamaica. The deal to sell AJ to the Trinidad owned airline is almost complete (minus the enormous debt load) and now people are coming out of the woodwork wanting to stop the sale.

Please take the time to read here and
here and finally
this

-Where were they in 2007-2009?
-If the sale of AJ is not completed, the IMF will not provide the loan, so what are these people with their brilliant ideas going to do about that?
- Is the Jamaican Government supposed to consult the diaspora every time the elected representatives make a decision? These people have the gall to say that they were not consulted?
-The divestment of AJ has been going on since 2008, now they also say that they are not aware of the haste in selling AJ?
I have always maintained that the Jamaican Diaspora is looking at Jamaica through rose colored glasses and they should wake up. They cannot and will not succeed by trying to institute solutions based on North American standards, which (in most cases) are opposite to the Jamaican culture. Jamaicans do not want the diaspora to dictate to them what must be done to solve their problems.

Here is a quotation from the Observer
"The diaspora has good people who decided to live, work and contribute abroad - not in their birth land. We rejoice that they "made it" but they must not burden us with duty waivers, conferences or be self-serving dictators in our lives."
You can read the article in its entirety here

Give me a break.

Walk Good