Executive Director of Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) Mickel Jackson - file photo
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Mickel Jackson
By Warren Bertram
Executive Director of Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) Mickel Jackson is calling out Education and Youth Minister Fayval Williams and the ministry for not acting sooner ahead of the damning report by the Office of the Children's Advocate (OCA).
The OCA report detailed findings of an investigation into the relationship between the Child Protection and Family Services Agency (CPFSA) and Embracing Orphans founder, Carl Robanske.
Ms. Jackson insists that although the ministry had been misled by the CPFSA head, the minister or her technical team should have conducted its own fact checking when discrepancies were observed.
"Listening to the minister detailing meeting after meeting where updates were provided by the CPFSA, if one assumes that there was some dereliction of duty to begin with, one would then assume that the minister and the technical personnel within the ministry ought to have substantiated some of what is being told by the CPFSA, and it cannot be through the OCA doing an extended report," she contended.
Ms. Jackson argued that the mnistry's position on the issue now does not provide comfort since the "immediate actions that were reasonable" should have been taken by the minister as soon as the discrepancies were identified.
Ms. Jackson also suggested that the Public Services Commission should have been called in sooner.
She said the reported obstructions which extended the duration of the OCA investigation, provided enough reason for Minister Williams or the Permanent Secretary to make an official complaint to the Public Services Commission.
The JFJ executive director called the matter problematic, blaming the ministry for "a delay and a lack of proactive behaviour" in addressing the concerns.
She was speaking Wednesday on Radio Jamaica's Beyond the Headlines.
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