Don’t buy you ticket or plan to visit or return to Jamaica without doing this first!!!

 

COVID pandemic has resulted in a lot of bureaucracy. No turning up to your favorite travel agent to buy a ticket on the spot, anymore. Not only do you have to make sure you have been tested negative for coronavirus, within a certain time frame of your flight, but you also have to complete an online form, including a quarantine assessment questionnaire, and have them all approved, prior to buying your ticket.

            The following process may be daunting but as a June 2020, the success rate was a total of 8,418 approvals that had been granted to Jamaicans overseas who had applied to the JamCovid online Ministry of Health system for permission to return “a yaad”, under the controlled re-entry programme. If you are thinking of doing the same, here is some useful information. You will need to go online and complete a re-entry form which is about a 4 pages long and once approved, you will be free to book your flight.

            Before you go online, make sure you have everything you need with you, as some of the sections time out, for example, the security code, or it is going to ask you the full address of where you are going to stay. No point ringing up the person while you are completing the form, it will time you out. Likewise, you can be looking for information in your wallet, on your phone, in an email, or on you PC- you must have everything on hand ready.

            This article is to prepare you in advance.

So before you start-

1.     Have your phone close by you.

2.     Have the email address you have been given, open so you can access the OTC (one-time code), and put it on the phone, which will be counting down (it gives you a few minutes)

3.     Have your passport with you because you will need to information on it, and you will need to take a photograph of it.

4.     Have full name, email address and phone number full street address of the place you are staying.

5.     Have full name, email address, phone number and full street address of your contact person in Jamaica.

6.     You TRN & NIS number, if you are a resident

7.     Parents full name and contact details

8.     Employers full name and contact details

9.     The last date you travelled to Jamaica

10.Details of your return ticket (if couldn’t back because the airport was closed)

11.The address where you are currently living

12.The dates and names of places you have bee to over the last six weeks. Once you have this, go online.

13.Go online under www.jamcovid19.moh.gov.jm

 

Once you have completed the form, click on the voice note and listen to it. You will need to make an attestation that you have read, understand and agree to all the information on the form and that the information is accurate and true.

You will then get a confirmation email, stating that your application has been received but it is not clear how long this process will take. Once you get approval via email proceed to book your ticket.

Declaration of Freedom

Alphonso McGriff

I’ve got no GURANTEES for NOBODY. If we cross paths and enjoy some time, then wonderful I’m having GREAT CHALLENGES with meeting EXPECTATIONS of myself and COMMITMENTS to myself. I CAN NO LONGER LIE to YOU with the idea of meeting YOUR anticipated expectations and commitments from ME…too impossible, too unreasonable, and too stressful

~

TIME don’t give one single damn about how we use it. IT’S GOING TO PASS REGARDLESS.

~

I have chosen to ENJOY TIME such as much as possible. YOU wanna’ ROLL? That’s cool, If not, then that’s cool also, but EXPECT to be DISAPOINTED if there is any hope that I am going to attempt MEET YOU EXPECTATIONS of ME. That’s OVER.

~

Call it SELFISH. Call it WEAK. Call it INSENSITIVE. If that works for YOU, then that’s BEAUTIFUL. But Imma’ do what works for ME ‘cause there is NOTHING more IMPORTANT in this entire existence than HOW I FEEL ‘BOUT ME.

~

…nothing

The State Citizen and Morality

Written by Carol Lawton

www.FinditJamaica.com

Ethics and Morals are debatable but at what point does it become objective. Each person has their own ethical and moral standards but is it defined by the State they live in as to what is acceptable. This tirade is based upon a conversation that I had in a shoe repair shop with a teacher today. It started out with a comment about a long time girl friend and who she ended up with vs who she used to date. My answer was that it’s life then I comment that our community was regressing and going backward from the original design. This is where the conversation took various turns.

My points for the regression of the community were as follows:

1. Sewage going straight into the sea. (We pay a sewage progress bill every month to NWC)

2. The top soil, garbage and sewage that comes out of the regularized (Operation Pride settle) in heavy flood waters off the hill to dig up the roads.

3. The smooth well built roads are down to the marl rocks which form the foundation of the roads.

4. The house are not numbered

5. Neighbors don’t know each other

6. Idlers and beggars on the corners

7. No more green spaces

I would list more but this is a shorten version. Long and short of it is this teacher said that the community was not regressing but that I was using a definition of development that does not fit Jamaica and that it was my type of thinking that reinforce the colonial model of development. All this statement is bull to me because if a well laid out community is forced to live alongside squatter who care little for the community they affect. A police force that does not follow the noise law or loitering laws, a government that care little for the environment and citizens who care for nothing but a roof over their heads and some food (money) then we must be a bunch of animals just living together because we a stuck on a rock. I remember the mongrel statement but this is just a tirade nothing personal.

He then went on to state that we are tropical people and throughout the topics this is how most countries are because of the customs of the people. Bull again. One thing that he did go on to talk about was values which I had to agree with him. The gist of the conversation on values boils down to at what point does the state step in when the family the basic structure of the state fails? Is it the laws of the state which have failed hence the control systems placed upon the citizens have regress to the chaos we have now where morals are bad and immorality is good. Where the good guy finish last and money and brute power are the key determinations of success and right? Are there multiple laws or one law for all in Jamaica for citizens, the rich, the poor and the civil servants? It is almost cave man like to think but he was right on the mark. The family is failing hence the state is failing as the family is the building block of the state. In AIDS torn countries, AIDS is the fear for state as it moves to destabilize entire families, villages and towns. In Jamaica, AIDS is a problem but more important are values, morals and ethics. Our population is very young and there is a disconnect with the last generation for some reason

The prime example is the music on the buses. An old lady commented that this was not the type of music to play while young people are on the bus to a conductor. The conductor said in a joking manner, it’s Irie Fm and laugh it off to the delight of the whole bus. Do we not have laws for this or is it that it’s everyone doing as they please. Is it that the State and the Teacher are of the same view that to enforce the law is to reinforce the standard of our past colonial history and let tropical people be tropical people and do as they please. Right around now I am very sarcastic because when I asked the teacher so where are they headed morally then since that is where the bankruptcy is? He drew a question sign in the air and says God knows!

Personally I think it is time the State apply the laws on the books. This application just as PC Lewin stated should go after the small things but it must be applied to the government as well. “Police wants insurance from public; their cars should meet the same standard”. If the State begins to act morally and ethical as it deals with the affairs of State the mirror effect will be the citizens will comply especially since the State is not just saying it they are doing it. The hard dry no feelings enforcement of the laws for all. When laws are not enforce then justice will cease and chaos will reign. Jamaica is at the brink of a failed state not by economics but moral and ethical failures and its toothless justice system.

A brief tirade on insurgency and government

Written by Carol Lawton Jr.

In the timeline of history one thing holds true in regards to governments, liberation movements and paramilitary groups and that is they wrestling for power within the state. These struggles between the factions may be covert, overt or collaborative. But the end result is always the same as the formal structure now has to deal with the dynamics which will always lead to social unrest.



In the development of dictatorships it is the state failure to control and maintain society because of the compromise given to the factions. Democracy is a scaring concept if the parties involve are not willing to safe guard it. Theocracy in of itself cannot be avoided as in any society one religion will be dominant but with this dominance it must allow allows to seek the own enlightenment in the belief of a higher being. Socialism is an artificial state because of the availability of limit resources yet unlimited wants and the difference in talents and ability between people. Capitalism in its pure state is by far the best but pure capitalism without safeguards to protect the weakest of society will lead to corruption and social unrest hence no system is superior.



What is striking is balance is needed between them all. The strong arm of the state while give the citizen the choice to choose which opportunity to purse to build wealth while protecting the weakest to allow them to have access to the capital that they need to survive. Such a system is the ideal but where to the system begin or end.



To have seen democracies where there is none. Socialism in Capitalism is a paradox. The ism of government is illusion as good governance is about making decisions based upon the need of the state. Hence to allow covert or overt groups to develop system above the platform of government will lead to strife and the eventual take over of government. In war torn region, it is the warlord who governs not the state, in inner city fiefdom it is the don through the collection of gains from transaction (unofficial tax), in war, the military rules the ground, and then the terrorists who rule by fear due to their ability to strike.



The state of government can only exist in peace. Hence peace is the objective of all government in the end regardless of the form. So when a state foster insurgency groups or terrorists with agenda against another state they have entered into a formal war under the veil that they are in the country unknown. Functionaries of the state will always have access to the information hence it will always up the chain of command and the objective is the survival of the state and information is key. So when a country like Lebanon allows for Hezbollah to organize, finance, set support social systems and military logistics system it should not be surprise that if it can not destroy its enemy, it will turn against its host like a parasite as it has already undermined the state in that an entity can wage war against sovereign nation and undermine the state ability to protect its borders and deploy diplomatic policy that leads to peace. Woe be unto a state that believe that it can exist in peace while pseudo governments exist within.