Lotto Scamming, Bling And Morality

Published:Sunday | March 10, 2013 | 12:00 AM

In this April 12, 2012 photo, Ruth Wilson embraces her father, who declined to be identified by name for fear of being

targeted for the Jamaican lottery scam or any other fraud again, in his home in Bothell, Washington. A task force has

fought to contain lottery scammers based mainly in western Jamaica who have defrauded Americans of tens of

millions of US dollars. - File

Ian Boyne, Contributor

I had always wondered how so many persons could be so dumb and inexplicably stupid to be scammed by

our lotto crooks until I heard the debate in Parliament and saw clearly the connection between lotto

scamming and our information technology sector.

The scoundrels have such intimate details of people's lives and activities, obviously gleaned from contacts within our

MoBay call centres, that it is not totally surprising why they are believed.

It was good that both political parties could unite in Parliament to pass that lotto-scam legislation last week. Julian

Robinson was very enlightening. He talked of investments Jamaica has lost because of our reputation for lotto

scamming.
Who wants to set up business in a country where you hire and train people who are going to steal people's identity

and pass them on to lotto scammers; a country where even innocent workers could be threatened or have their family

members threatened unless information is passed to them; where you have to be constantly firing and then hiring

again and training at considerable cost?

Now when you realise the vast potential which exists in the information-processing sector and how many jobs this

sector could deliver, you don't need a better example of how our immorality and corruption hold us back.

The lotto scam highlights several things which are wrong with us and acts as a mirror to our soul. Here we have an

industry with vast potential to employ many relatively low-skilled people as well as those at the high end. American

businesses which are going to India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Barbados could be coming here.

FEEDING BLING CULTURE

Lotto scamming feeds into our frenzy for the bling lifestyle, the quick money. It also highlights muddled thinking and

reflects our moral bankruptcy. When lotto scamming can be marketed as reparation for slavery and colonialism, you

know we are in need of a moral compass. Last week at the annual GraceKennedy Foundation lecture, it was the

issue of morality which was the theme. The presenter this year was that engaging intellectual, Dr Ana Perkins, trained

at Boston College and Cambridge University, now at the University of the West Indies. Her lecture, published as a 66-

page booklet, was titled Moral Dis-ease Making Jamaica Ill?: Re-engaging the Conversation.

Perkins says Jamaica is suffering from moral degenerative syndrome (MDS). The causative agents for this disease

are "poor socialisation, inappropriate values and attitudes, lack of personal responsibility, reduced moral sensitivity,

imagination and reasoning". The symptoms are all around us - "widespread disrespect for each other, murder, rape,

larceny and robbery, petty and white-collar theft and dishonesty, among others".

Perkins feels we should regard this moral crisis as a kind of national emergency - no doubt comparable to our

economic crisis. Indeed, the two are intertwined and feed on each other. One of the things we have to seriously

assess is how our moral fabric will be affected by this new International Monetary Fund agreement. We have been

busy assessing the economic and social impact of the programme, but, as usual, the moral issues have been given

short shrift.

Parliamentarians were quick to push through that lotto scam legislation last week because they understand what it is

doing to our image, to our crime rate, and to business. But there are other pernicious effects of our dysfunctional
moral system. A friend was telling me how many more teenagers he has been seeing (or passing, rather!) on

Portmore's 'Back Road'. Well, more will be available for show and sale with this fiscal consolidation programme.

There will be more transactional sex, more booty on display, more flesh hustling. The civil servants have signed on -

at least their association has on their behalf - to three more years of no pay increase. But when the pressures begin

to bite, what will they do? Will they still give a fair day's work for a fair day's pay? Will a lot of the time be taken up

hustling? Will their energies be concentrated on the job? These are all issues which impinge on morality.

ETHICAL ISSUE

If the moral sentiments of the people are not developed, will people be producing to the best of their ability when they

are under wage restraint? It is one thing to get people to agree to wage restraint because they feel they have no

choice, really. It's another thing to really have them engaged and involved. That's an ethical issue. You would have to

have people who believe that once they have given their word to work for three years without any increase - but many

price increases - they will still give their best.

George Davis will have more 'In the office but not on the job' columns to write about if we don't have civil servants

who are ethically inclined.

Ethics and morality are critically important to economic development. Our hope to bring in more taxes and to increase

tax compliance is not unrelated to our moral ethos.

Yes, systems and structures will go a far way

to increasing compliance, but building a sense of responsibility towards

others and towards one's country will help significantly in releasing

tax dollars to the Consolidated Fund. Tax dodgers can make it easy for

the authorities by just bringing in the taxes. No matter how efficient a

system we have, we will never be able to bring in as much money as if

we have more ethical people.

But we give short shrift

to morality, confusing and conflating it with religion. People who are

not religious can be quite ethical. Ana Perkins conceded this readily in
her GraceKennedy lecture. In fact, she is to be commended for so

admirably taking a broad-based approach to morality and not tying it

exclusively with religious conviction. She shows there can be secular

sources of morality. What we need to do is to build consensus around a

set of values which contribute to nation-building and economic

prosperity.

BLING VS AUSTERITY

Our

obsession with money, bling and status, our tendency to show off, pop

style and 'flash it' on our friends and associates (but, especially,

enemies!) does not go well with austerity. With little money to go

around because we are under an austerity programme and have to meet that

7.5 per cent fiscal surplus, how will all these people, whose concept

of 'the good life' is inextricably tied up with material possessions, to

manage to keep their cool?

Listen to our dancehall

songs if you want to know the things glorified in the culture. You have

legislation to curb lotto scamming and that's great, but you don't have a

culture to help you. The culture says get it at all cost; get it

because you are entitled to it; don't wait on the old-fashioned way to

get it - study hard, work hard. That is

foolishness!

If you can get it through lotto scamming,

get it and bathe your car with champagne. Light up thousand-dollar

bills, prompting gun salutes, and rent out a whole hotel block with

women (or men!) And have some orgies. Away with this old-fashioned

morality and outdated notions of right and wrong! You don't know what's

right for me. I don't know what's right for you; to each his own. That's

their philosophy.
MAKING CRIME

COOL

Dr Perkins noted the Vybz Kartel and Gaza Slim

song Reparation, which extols the virtues of the

lotto scammer, "who is seen as a star for earning foreign

exchange while taking care of his mother and educating his sister. These

dancehall artistes portray scamming as a non-violent crime which is

qualitatively less wrong than the hunger it is attempting to assuage.

Similarly, they portray as a right of all, the possession of such

material goods as planes, pools, large bank accounts and expensive,

high-performance motor vehicles."

But,

remember, that is the model set by the middle and upper classes.

Granted, you might say they work for theirs, though ghetto people know

that not all of them do. Some get their wealth through corruption and

political connections. Our middle and upper classes don't provide an

overwhelmingly inspiring moral model. The people featured on our social

pages flaunting their wealth and uptown bling are also saying that these

are the things which matter most. Ghetto people know that among them

are some of the biggest tax dodgers, and 'bly' and contract recipients.

Dem cyaah tell ghetto people nutten!

PROMOTE GOOD

VALUES

So from top to bottom, you are talking about a

society in moral decay and which is ethically rudderless. No one is

setting any example. And I don't accept the view that symbolic actions

at the top are not important and are just 'meaningless symbols'. They

are extremely important, especially in a society suffering from MDS and

one under IMF austerity.

Attitudes Programme needs to be resuscitated, but in a meaningful way.

We must promote it the way we promote sports and entertainment. We must

put the kind of heavy sponsorship that we put into Champs, Olympics,

football and other games. The last Jamaica Labour Party and the previous

People's National Party regimes gave lip service to values and

attitudes, calling it different names, taking the same lacklustre, tepid

and half-hearted approach. If this administration resurrects the

programme, it must be done meaningfully, with multiple millions of

dollars behind it, using heavy private-sector

sponsorship.