Spectrum Management Authority’s Free KFC For Jabs Irks Dancehall Fraternity
The decision by Jamaica’s Spectrum Management Authority to offer free Kentucky Fried Chicken meals and $100 phone cards, as incentives to get people living in the Downtown Kingston area to be vaccinated, has been met with jeering and disdain by members of the Dancehall fraternity.
The Spectrum Management Authority, an agency of the Ministry of Science, Energy and Technology, offered its offices at 13-19 Harbour Street in Kingston, as the site for a vaccination blitz that took place on Sunday under the theme, ‘Come tek di juk’.
The blitz, which was staged in collaboration with KFC and Flow, came against the background of concerns that less than 14 percent of the Jamaican population is fully vaccinated and took place on the expiry day of the Ministry of Health’s 150,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines.
The Health Ministry has a target of inoculating 65 percent of the population in order to achieve herd immunity by March 2022.
After reading a Gleaner article on Sunday, which noted that the organisers “are optimistic that offering free KFC meals and Flow credit giveaways will get some persons to abandon their hesitancy”, the Dancehall acts ridiculed the attempts of the State agencies, some pointing out that it was an embarrassing move.
“Lol what a price for death,” Foota Hype jeered after seeing the article, while Pamputtae posted a series of laughing emoticons.
“Wow 😱 This vaccine is a Big Deal literally 🤣😅😆😁 This method could have been used to fight crime and other things,” Billboard producer Kirk “Koolface” Ford said.
Over on Tanya Stephen’s Instagram page where the Gleaner post was also shared, and captioned: “You can still catch it! A juk for a bite”, there was a flurry of comments.
“lol Pathetic,” an amused Party Animal producer Kurt Riley noted.
This is beyond warped and surreal”, Riley who is also a noted musicologist added.
Also expressing dismay, was an unimpressed Dancehall dance lecturer Orville Hall.
“This is what absolute desperation looks like,” he wrote, later adding: smh…this is embarrassing”.
There were responses from Dancehall fans on Tanya’ page including holihealthhack, who noted: ” I cannot believe a product that is high in SATURATED FAT, causing obesity, heart disease, hypertension is associated with ‘health’.
“Desperate to use the expired vaccines, so they go ‘downtown’ to the less fortunate and bribe them with food and communication. KFC wins with distribution of their high cholesterol, high sodium food (which will be paid for by MOH with tax payers money) and poor things don’t realize they jeopardized their health for $100 credit ($0.64US),” Casey America stated.
According to The Gleaner, Maria Myers-Hamilton, managing director of the Spectrum Management Authority, said that the organisation, which is located in the heart of central Kingston, “considered it part of its corporate social responsibility to reach out to residents of downtown Kingston’s many inner-city communities”.
According to Myers-Hamilton, “chicken and cell phone credit” were, among other things, “staples in poor households”.
“I know a number of people are suffering in silence in the inner city… Food is not something that we take for granted [or] credit,” she had told The Gleaner the day before the event.