Morris Cargill

ON WEDNESDAY of last week, two of my much respected colleagues had a go in their different ways at the state of our finances.

Delroy Chuck came up with the rather droll idea that poverty is a sin. He has a point. For in a country that needs a lot of money to keep things going, people who can't afford to pay a lot of taxes could well be considered social liabilities. The creation of wealth is undoubtedly a social necessity, and those who create it need special commendation. But right at the end of this column he lost me by writing about his "passionate belief that God wants us to enjoy prosperity and good living." I have always been envious of people who have been able to get Cable and Wireless to give them long distance communication to Heaven. Without that facility this column is at the disadvantage of being unable to find out details of God's will.

Peter Espeut, oddly enough, made no mention of God in his piece entitled, 'Back to the IMF'. His information was more worldly and a good deal more interesting, for it came from a magazine published in London, and it gave us some idea of what might be in store for us if we went back to the IMF. Peter Espeut indicates that the IMF would force us to increase both Income Tax and GCT. Increases in Income Tax are usually pointless, for the higher the tax the less it yields, for the good reason that when Income Tax becomes high, batteries of lawyers, highly skilled in the art of tax avoidance immediately leap into action.

The IMF, according to Peter Espeut, would increase GCT to 30 per cent. While, as a general principle, I think that taxes on expenditure are far better than taxes on income, we should have to be very careful in Jamaica about any increase in GCT. Right now in Jamaica we are all sitting on a tinderbox. Look what happened in the case of petrol. I rather fear that if we slapped on an increase on GCT, we might get the country burned down.

The truth of the matter is that my favourite Minister, Omar Davies, has his oblate spheroids in a vice. He is going to lose them whichever way he jumps. There is, however, one way out of his difficulty, but he is far too stubborn to pay the slightest attention to it. Right now, unable to borrow from abroad at any reasonable rate of interest, he is borrowing heavily from Jamaicans at interest rates between 18 per cent and 21 per cent, which keeps all interest rates high and stagnates production.

I have suggested that we should repudiate our foreign debts or, at the very least, postpone payment and the servicing of them. This would release a considerable amount of money which could be spent on things that the Government can no longer afford, such as roads and health services. We've got a hole in the budget that could accommodate the entire British navy. If we stop servicing or repaying our foreign debts, and cut down our wild local borrowings, we might restore some sanity to our financial affairs. But I fear that my favourite Minister is rather like a very large battleship. His initial inertia makes it very difficult for him to stop or change course.

On another matter, I see BOJ has suddenly started to lend more than $600 million to financial institutions who are having trouble with their liquidity. Good Heavens! We are not starting that all over again are we? I think we have reached the point where those who become unliquid should be left to stay that way or go quietly bust. We can't go on running a welfare state for our financial institutions.

Then again, we could save a billion or two if we purged our quangos and forced our brand new bunch of multi-millionaires to earn their livings in more creative ways at reasonable salaries. We cannot afford these expensive parasites.

What price a life

To turn now to a much smaller matter which nevertheless is important in terms of human values. I have before me a case of a 20-month-old girl child who loss her life at the Bustamante Children's Hospital, apparently through negligence. For years, her parents have been trying to get some compensation. The latest offer from the Attorney-General includes the sum of $5,000 for 'Loss of expectation of life.'

There seems to be no sensible scale of payment for such losses. In the case I am writing about, there seems to be no denial of negligence, for if there was no negligence even this paltry offer would not have been made. To offer a mere $5,000 in such a case seems to me to be an expression of contempt.

Religious arguments

I see that my dear friend and colleague Dawn Ritch is getting a bit of flack for a piece she wrote recently about some of our churches. I see too that my respected colleague Desmond Henry, backed by the Rev. Ernle Gordon, is getting a bit fussed up about Amens.

Much as I would like to take part in these polite little brawls, I am totally unfit for any such discussions. I take the view that we were nothing before we were born and we shall be nothing after we die, and I think that all this stuff about making a 'transition' to some afterlife, is an industry built up to relieve the anxieties of creatures programmed for survival, yet know they can't. As a Buddhist I am supposed to believe in reincarnation, but I have no proof of that either. However, just in case, I am trying to adjust my Karma so that if I am reborn I will come back as a stud bull in the Argentine.

So you will see that I am totally unfit to take part in any religious discussion. I offend enough people by my columns on other matters as it is. There are occasions however, when I think its wise to keep my big mouth shut.

Morris Cargill is The Gleaner's senior columnist and has been writing for more than 46 years.