Thu | Mar 28, 2024

Briefing | Jamaica’s economic development hampered by politics

Published:Friday | September 13, 2019 | 12:00 AMAndre Haughton/Contributor

Politics has been an enemy of the nation’s economic development. Our healthcare, education and water systems; our national security, among many other necessities in the country, continue to deteriorate without proper upkeep. Student’s school fees are exorbitant while they sit in classrooms with insufficient resources. The sick can’t find beds to rest at some hospitals, police and soldiers are short-staffed and fatigued by long work hours and working conditions, while crime and violence continue to escalate across the island. Infrastructure replenishment and proper use and allocation of government funds continue to elude Jamaica.

Government policies have a huge role to play in the proper management and productivity of a nation’s resources, including, its land, labour and capital. If these are mismanaged then the entire economy will find it difficult to improve. The Government’s aim, through its Ministry of Economic Growth and Job Creation is indicating that it would like the country to grow and create more employment opportunities for its people. But as more and more people get jobs, more and more people continue to struggle to afford basic needs like food, clothing and shelter. Many people have to resort to begging to satisfy their basic needs, even working people have to beg or solicit pay day loans that force them into a debt trap.

This simply means that the country cannot advance with a focus on just job creation; evident by the fact that more people are working while at the same time more people are becoming poorer. The truth is, any work can be classified as a job, but not any job can improve the conditions of the working class of people whose lives tell the direction in which the country is headed.

Government should have measurable targets. For example, we would like 500,000 people to join the middle class by 2030. By the way, does Jamaica even have a middle class? OK, forget about class. We want 500,000 people to be earning more than $3 million a year. Then how do we achieve this?

Do we need a Ministry of Economic Development, Productivity Advancement and Wealth Creation?

A government with an understanding of the interconnectedness of economic processes would create a ministry that focuses on economic development, productivity advancement and wealth instead of growth creation. This sounds like a ministry with a progressive agenda. The thing is, any government can provide a climate to create job opportunities, while any business can hire and fire people but there are very few administrations who have engineered the right polices to create the capacity necessary to elevate their country from a state of underdevelopment to that of a developed nation and this should be Jamaica’s fundamental aim.

The main driver to production is increased productivity and efficiency. To capitalise on its productive potential, Jamaica has to be smart in its approach to production, it must ascertain which goods and services fetch the higher price to cost ratio and propagate these across the island. Research, infrastructure and taxation and subsidy policy should then be used to help guide the industries forward, similar to what occurred when tobacco and sugar cane were kings. During those times Jamaica had a positive trade balance where it exported more than it imported. Now Jamaica’s trade balance shows no sign of an improved economy as the value of what we import is more than four times our exports.

Now in this modern economy, our focus is scattered all about the place, confused and misguided by pretentious ideals. So much so that our aim is to provide jobs and grow the economy without any recourse for human and social development and the creation of wealth so that income levels can increase.

Dr Andre Haughton is a university lecturer and opposition senator