GEORGE TOWN, Grand Cayman (Jamaica Observer) — Contractor General Dirk Harrison is warning governments of the Caribbean, and in particular Jamaica, that failure to effectively squeeze corruption will lead to their ultimate demise.
Speaking at a lunch plenary entitled, ‘A Corruption-free Government for Jamaica: A How-to-Manual from the Contractor General’s Office, with Implications for the Region’, organised and hosted by the University College of the Cayman Islands in this British territory last Friday, Harrison said that levels of corruption in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean had reached frightening proportions and the possibility existed that countries could experience a bursting at the seams, if they do not act decisively against it.
“The growing tolerance of corruption in our society is such that I think it is at the seams about to burst. I think now is the time that we need to come together as stakeholders. We rather should not think how we will address the problem; let’s just do it now (starting the process) and when we get there we deal with the problem,” he told a packed auditorium.
The three-day-long series of activities put on by one of the foremost tertiary institutions in the Cayman Islands, saw over 120 participants diving into various segments of corruption, built around the conference theme of ‘Towards a Corruption-Free Caribbean: Ethics, Values, Trust and Morality’.
