The Coalition speaks!

Well, not really. More like "The Coalition sends an email that really doesn't say anything!"

In my last post, I told you that I had sent emails to all the members of the Coalition of Corporate Sponsors asking them to make a statement regarding an incident involving Bounty Killer. To date, only one company has responded to my email.

Maxine Whittingham, the Head of Corporate Relations at Red Stripe had this to say on the matter:

Dear Mr Thomas,

Thank you for your email addressed to our Marketing Communication Manager regarding Bounty Killer's recent endorsement of Stone Crusher.

As a member of the Coalition of Corporate Sponsors we are indeed aligned to the position that as a united force we can in fact influence and, over time, change popular culture to reflect positive, uplifting messages. There are many ways in which this can be achieved. However from our interaction with the dancehall industry, we have come to agree that a confrontational approach is, at best, the least effective.

It is for this reason that you will not always see the Coalition making direct, public statements about issues, but at the same time it should not suggest that the Coalition is doing nothing to make the change.

We appreciate your concern and wish to assure you that as a group of responsible corporate citizens we are indeed 'on the case'.

Thank you.


Maxine Whittingham
Head of Corporate Relations
Red Stripe, a Diageo Company
214 Spanish Town Road
Kingston 11



To which I replied:

Dear Ms. Whittingham,

Thanks for taking the time out to answer.

I can understand that one may not always want to take a confrontational approach but "justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done".
I applaud the fact that you are "on the case", as you put it, and I think that the wider public would be more appreciative of your efforts if something was said publicly. As it stands now, the public generally views the Coalition as a bunch of corporate hypocrites and this may make your campaign less effective.

Thanks again for your time.

Nigel Thomas


Let's see who else answers. Keep those emails going.

Take a stand

Tonight I did some things I should have done a long time ago but didn't get around to doing. I sent a email to Cable and Wireless asking them to stop using Bounty Killer as one of their spokespersons and to issue a statement condemning both Bounty's actions at the Aquasol theme park in Montego Bay and his subsequent refusal to apologize. I also sent emails to the other members of the Coalition of Corporate Sponsors (Red Stripe, Cable & Wireless, Supreme Ventures, Digicel, Courts, the Jamaica Tourist Board and J. Wray & Nephew Ltd) and to Solid Agency (Bounty Killer's management company) asking that they insist that Mr. Pryce issue an immediate apology to the people of Jamaica for his poor judgment.

The are a couple of reasons for my requests and the first one is pretty obvious - Bounty Killer not only offended an entire city by paying homage to a criminal gang on stage, but has further infuriated many by refusing to apologize, deciding instead to issue a poorly worded and even more poorly delivered statement which was published today in the Evening Star (isn't it funny how this issue has received very little attention from the main media houses?).

The second reason is that Cable and Wireless was/is a member of the Coalition of Corporate sponsors who got up on their high horses in 2005 and declared that they would no longer sponsor, among other things, "acts or events whose live performances endorse or incite violence" after Beenie Man used profanity and violent lyrics during a Carnival performance in April of 2005. There was a big hullabaloo - the coalition stopped sponsoring events and then, like most other issues in Jamaica, the ban was forgotten or rescinded and everyone was back in business. One would think that if they made such a big stink about a couple of so-called "bad" words and two gun tune that the Coalition would be up in arms at Bounty's recent gaffe. After all, this wasn't a violent tune aimed a industry rival, this was the endorsing of an extremely violent, ruthless criminal enterprise. What was the coalition's response?

Not. A. Peep. According to the Star, Cable and Wireless had no comment on the matter when contacted almost three weeks after the incident. No other coalition member has, as far as I know, issued a statement condemning the "bigging up" of the Stone Crusher gang.

It looks like the lives of the mostly poor black people the Stone Crushers have killed, robbed and maimed are not even worth the time it would take to prepare a statement, much less the expense of having to hold a press conference.

It's time for the hypocrisy to stop. Please email or call these companies demanding that they speak out and hold Bounty Killer and anyone else who endorses gangs that kill Jamaicans accountable to the standards they set so vociferously when it was good PR. Email Bounty Killer and demand an apology and condemnation of the Stone Crushers on behalf of all those who have lived (and died) in fear of the gang.

If any of you have email addresses for any execs at the companies, please pass them along.

The taxman cometh

Omar Davies has yet again presented the latest version of the "run-Jamaica-into-ruin" plan, also known as "the budget". Of course, not many believe that the budget that Omar presented is the final version. This is simply the election version, with more taxes and borrowing to come after the elections that should be called later this year and that, my friends, is pretty scary.

The government is increasing taxes and focusing on collecting outstanding taxes but has still not created an environment in which small and medium sized businesses can flourish (which would increase tax revenue) or an environment in which most people want to pay their taxes because they can see their tax dollars at work, whether it be in the form of (properly) fixed roads, better schools, better health care or more affordable housing.

As it is, the average Jamaican gives up almost 50% of their salary to the taxman. 25% to income tax, 16.5% to GCT and another couple percent to the various statutory deductions. What do we have to show for it? Not much, except for a cycle of borrow because we don't have enough tax revenue to finance the budget then tax more to pay back the loans.

I can't wait to see what Omar the three card man announces after the elections this year - the Observer's editorial cartoon hit the nail on the head.

Chris Dehring responds

In a letter to the media the chief organizer of the 2007 ICC Cricket World Cup, Chris Dehring, finally responded publicly to accusations that he and his team bungled their job and misled host countries as to the amount of money that they would be making from the World Cup. The letter gives a synopsis of the host selection process and the information that was relayed to the countries who bid for the opportunity to host matches.

As I said in my last post, all the agreements were signed years ago and for governments to be blaming the Host Venue Agreements (HVAs) now means one of two things; they either didn't read the 298 page "Bid Book" and the HVA (which would mean that they're totally and completely incompetent since they didn't do due diligence), or they read the documents, found them to be completely unsatisfactory and signed them anyway.

I'm not sure which one is worse.

Read the full text of Dehring's letter here.