Letter of the Day | Lessons from local government elections

THE EDITOR, Madam:

It would be a sad misreading of the local government elections lesson to think that all the Jamaican people want is better roads and transport, more water in their pipes, and garbage disposed of more promptly. What they truly want cuts a lot deeper.

The far worse mistake, however, is to confuse the financial system with the economy, while cherry-picking from the past to show how ‘my party’ did better than the other one.

The historical facts in those regards are few and simple:

1. One party, the PNP, put the country, between 2012 and 2015, on a sound financial footing of debt reduction and the control of inflation and spending.

2. The other party, the JLP, since 2016, has kept and smoothed out the wrinkles in that financial system.

3. But for over eight decades, neither major party succeeded in giving Jamaica an economy productive enough to provide the entire population with a sustainable standard of living.

It is one thing to count beans. It is entirely another to grow them. Both parties have been good at counting beans. Both have failed to get Jamaica to produce them. Both have failed to fully yield to the cultural guidance and provide the full constitutional independence that the Jamaican people want.

So, beyond roads, transport, water and garbage, but those too, the people want to see tourism connect more thoroughly – Minister Edmund Bartlett has made a start – with agriculture.

Howard Mitchell, Zak Mars, Maureen Denton, John Mahfood and other agro producers – with Caribbean Flavours and Fragrances, GraceKennedy Foods, and Jamaican Teas – point out the direction that would capitalise on the herbs, fruits, and fragrances that are uniquely Jamaica’s, giving it a market possessed by no other country. (See my book, Fractured Nation Vibrant People, second edition, chapter 14.)

They want agriculture connected with agro-industry. They want manufacture serving tourism, and tourism drawing more from manufacture. Metry Seaga and Stephen Sirgany have offered a splendid example with their JFP Ltd, formerly Jamaican Fibreglass Products, manufacturing hotel room furniture.

The trickle-down economics that both parties have so far pursued won’t achieve such targets. If we want Jamaica to get closer to Singapore, then we need to take up Singapore’s hands-on ‘developmental’ approach to the economy. This is not to dictate to business. It is not to domineer. But it is to have a strong government that guides and positively helps where help is needed, as is often the case, especially among the MSMEs.

Certainly, it is not to allow a few big banks to prosper, using people’s savings that the economy badly needs for expansion to fatten their accounts and those of their top executives. No other foundation will serve and respond to the full social and cultural guidance and the constitutional yearnings of the Jamaican people.

HORACE LEVY