In case you missed it, Prime Minister Bruce Golding's Budget presentation last week drew the sharpest and clearest line yet between his economic philosophy and that of the People's National Party (PNP). While the PNP has been calling on the Government to spend more and do more, the prime minister believes that "Government was the problem".
In 1962, 66 Jamaicans were murdered, and the Jamaican homicide rate was lower than the United States of America's (USA). In 2009, 1,680 Jamaicans were murdered, and the Jamaican homicide rate was 12 times higher than the USA's.
Recent reports of the 'evaporation' of about 42lb of gold from the Half-Way Tree Police Station gives us a déjà vu feeling when one recalls a similar vanishing of funds from the custody of the Ministry of Finance's Financial Investigations Division (FID) in 2007.
Portia Simpson Miller had clearly anticipated the prime minister's Budget presentation the week before he gave it and attacked the thesis that the Jamaican economy had stabilised and that policies were right for growth.
"It is time to tell the people the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth," the leader of the Opposition declared in her Budget Debate presentation. Politicians have a strong predilection to be economical with the truth. Economy with the truth is not simply because politicians are more prone to be 'pathologically mendacious' than the general population.
Last Friday evening, with the intervention of the Ministry of Education, a quiet, but significant, triumph for the Charter of Rights, and specifically for faith rights, took place, in a nail-biting, eleventh-hour finale at the University of Technology,...
So, terrorism's poster boy is no more. Or, as J.K. Rowling might put it, it all ends for Hairy Plotter. Incomplete scorecard reads Civilisation 2: Terrorism 0.
He is still my friend and respected graphic artist, who knows Jamaican political history, but despite his well-reputed expertise on the subject, Troy Caine should not think that he has a monopoly.
This is the second of a five-part series on Jamaica's new Charter of Rights. From where did bills or charters of rights spring? What is their place in the societal governance order? What is their contribution to the development of a people? What really...
After spending more than half a trillion dollars in the fight against terror since 9/11, the US's recent termination (with extreme prejudice) of bin Laden at his Abbottabad hideout will no doubt be the hottest topic for some time to come.
Are fiscal-responsibility laws and transparency the new flavour of the month? Several other flavours have been in vogue and have been consumed internationally with varying...
Journalists Cliff Hughes and George Davis wondered aloud after Finance Minister Audley Shaw's Budget presentation how Omar Davies could recover from the politically devastating, feel-good Budget that had been delivered.
In my last article, I made the point that one of the things that our Charter of Rights does is that it presents the judiciary with the opportunity to be the vanguard that stands between the citizen and the State, as the...
On April 19, the Consumer Affairs Commission (CAC), along with the National Consumers' League, released a Draft Code of Conduct - Banking Services, regarding the conduct of banking entities.
Guest columnist, Dr Orville Taylor, has apparently taken on the new role of political analyst in his piece in The Sunday Gleaner of April 10, regarding the by-election in South West St Catherine.
The clumsily named Jamaica Development Infrastructure Programme (JDIP), at $36 billion, is not only the biggest development fund and programme in the history of the country, it has the ugly potential of being the biggest political pork barrel ever.
In 1960-61, on the eve of Independence, 61 per cent of Jamaica's national income went to 20 per cent of the population. Jamaica was a very unequal society. It had been so long before.
Below is the first of a three-part series from Edward Seaga's Prime Ministerial Reflections address, hosted recently by the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies.
Beyond an ad hominem title that may not necessarily be attributable to Darron Thomas, his response to my 'Clarifying the Jurisdiction of the FTC' bears a staunch resistance to reading primary as opposed to secondary research material.
Significantly slashing the tax on motor vehicles, including gas-guzzling SUVS, might not be the best way to send the signal that you support production over consumption, and it is certainly not sending a message that you are eager to reduce our crippling oil-import bill.
After laying out some three supplementary budgets in fiscal year 2010-2011, the credibility of the estimates of expenditure for fiscal year 2011-2012 presented on April 21, 2011 has immediately been questioned. The approximately $48-billion nominal increase over last year's revised figure of $497 billion crudely keeps the real budgeted amount unchanged.
