Prime Minister Bruce Golding (right) hosts Dhaima Brookes (second right) and District Constable Michelle Lewis (second left) at his office on Tuesday. National Coordinator of the National Transformation Programme, the Reverend Al Miller (left), also lunched with the prime minister and the women. Brookes, who is a legal secretary by profession, found $1 million at an ATM machine a few days after Christmas and turned in the money to the police. Lewis assisted her to transport the cash to the Waterford Police Station. She has been rewarded by the Guardsman Group for returning the money. - contributed
Dhaima Brookes, the woman who stumbled upon $1 million in an ATM in the Portmore Mall, St Catherine, last December, and later handed it over to the police, was on Tuesday praised by Prime Minister Bruce Golding.
Brookes had the pleasure of having lunch with Golding and recalling her story of the money she found at the ATM.
Accompanied by District Constable Michelle Lewis, Brookes accepted Prime Minister Golding's invitation to join him and the National Director of the National Transformation Programme, Pastor Al Miller, for lunch at Jamaica House, so they could get a detailed account of her reaction to the deed. Golding showered Brookes with praises for her honesty and took delight in hearing her recall the moment when she found the cash.
'Couldn't live with myself'
"It's the way my mother brought me up to know that honesty is the best policy. If something isn't mine, then I have no right to take it," Brookes told Golding and Miller over lunch.
"I couldn't live with myself knowing that I have taken money that isn't mine. At no time did the thought even enter my mind to walk out of that ATM with the million dollars," she noted.
At the time when Brookes alerted DC Lewis about the money, she didn't know that Lewis was a cop. It was Lewis who assisted her in taking the money to the police station for it to be returned to its rightful owners.
"This kind of gesture shows that there is so much hope for Jamaica," said Miller.
"It's what the National Transformation Programme is all about. I want to invite both Brookes and DC Lewis to join us in our campaign of spreading the message throughout Jamaica."
The National Transformation Programme is a non-partisan, moral, value-based programme that intends to trigger a positive transformation process for all Jamaicans.
It is a civil society-led partnership involving the Church, State and the private sector, and is fully supported by the prime minister.