Delroy Chuck AS I travel around the country, campaigning and meeting people, observing and assessing the plight of poor and vulnerable folks, conversing and listening to their daily woes and chores, I truly understand the hardship and hopelessness that so many of our people endure. From the comfort of our homes, or convenience of our air-conditioned cars or offices, we do not really get a feel of people's problems until they open their homes and communities and reveal how they survive in an economically hostile society.
The government can boast of progress and solid achievements but visit and interact with rural Jamaica and the conditions in which some of our people live are disgraceful and nothing to boast about. While many of the highways are being repaired and expanded, and new ones come on stream, it is a different story in the towns and villages, where the roads are deplorable, provide a bumpy hill and gully ride, and most are in urgent need of repairs. Not far from these roads, squatter communities have developed almost everywhere, as Jamaicans desperately seek shelter and a place of abode. To see how ordinary Jamaicans live on hillsides, in gullies, along riverbanks, and in areas with few basic amenities, it is easy to despair and ask why, but, instead, I dream of a better Jamaica and acknowledge that Jamaica deserves better.
In the inner cities of the urban areas, people fight for space, and shacks are bunched closely to one another. Running water, electricity supply and other amenities are available but over-crowding, tension and conflicts are ever present and one gets the feeling that these communities could erupt and explode at anytime. In the rural communities, one still sees and feels the poverty, deprivation and depression but there is harmony, submission and acceptance of the confined and inadequate physical circumstances in which rural folks live. Everywhere, with the scarcity of jobs and opportunities, people are looking to the government, the churches and social agencies to make their lives better, improve their surroundings and enhance their quality of life. Those of us who know Jamaica deserves better need to accept the daring challenge to get Jamaica working to bring the needed social and economic benefits to every corner of the country.
If Jamaica can compete with the best in soccer, athletics and other sporting endeavours, as demonstrated once again in the just concluded IAAF/Coca Cola Games then why can't Jamaica compete with the world in the production of goods and services? Jamaican entrepreneurs, many of whom struggled and failed here, have gone abroad and done well in the competitive first world business environment. Our nurses, teachers and other professionals are known across the globe for their extraordinary skills and performance. Many of our scholars have outperformed the best and brightest in top universities in England, Canada, the USA and elsewhere. In fact, many of our best educated are professors and tenured educators in top educational institutions. In truth, Jamaica tends to produce golden nuggets in every sphere instead of consistently rich fields of golden accomplishments. So, we may have the top performers in CXC but we may be close to the bottom in overall accomplishment.
Jamaica deserves better but it is not going to happen until Jamaicans demand better. It is not going to happen until Jamaicans accept that their destiny rests in their own hands and acknowledge that despite the exploitation and oppression of the past, the path to a better future can be found in good governance, sound leadership and thinking minds. With Emancipation Day around the corner, there will be talk again of reparation and the injustices of slavery, when much more could be accomplished if we chart and plan our future, instead of wasting time pondering on the past and pursuing lost causes.
Nowadays, politicians are all over the place promising and offering everything under the sun to get elected or to remain in office. Many of us have not been in touch or seen by our constituents in years but with election around the corner we are everywhere. Roads are being hastily fixed, land given away, chicken and other livestock offered or promised, and a picture of hope and a good life painted when the reality is otherwise. The present administration would like Jamaicans to forget the negative growth and economic stagnation the country suffered, the increasing poverty, rampant injustices and human rights abuses. Yet, Jamaicans from all walks of life must wake up and smell the coffee and ask what is in store for them over the next five years and more. Are we to continue on the same path or is there a better one?
Now is the time for concerned Jamaicans to ask of political leaders and representatives what vision and plans do they have to make their communities better and to open windows of opportunities for our people, especially the young and restless, to find hope and a better life? To be sure, the business of government needs a revolutionary change. Our governments have tried to do too much but end up doing too little or nothing. How is it that the governmental bureaucracy has got larger and more cumbersome, when the rest of Jamaica is downsizing and capsizing? How is it that government is the main player in the economic sector and taking the lion's share of loans from the banks yet is providing less, and governmental services at every level get weaker and more inadequate daily.
Actually, the processes of government have become hindrances and obstacles in the way of progress, and the first task of a new and better government is to remove the layers of bureaucracy that have frustrated, hindered and strangled businesses and the Jamaican people. Jamaica deserves better but it will not get better until it gets a caring and better government. If people want to know why Jamaicans do well abroad but can barely survive at home, it can easily be explained by the increasing abundance of opportunities created in first world countries whilst, in Jamaica, government agencies lock up and close off opportunities without creating any new ones. Simply reflect on the entrepreneurial spirit of the many informal commercial traders, taxi drivers and peddlers who are now being harassed and their path to economic survival blocked, then ask what alternative is the government offering for them to make a decent living.
Jamaica deserves better but it can only come if we work our way out of the hopelessness and hardships, and stimulate our people to greater creativity and production. Jamaica needs massive investment projects, export-oriented production, a competitive working environment and a clear understanding that, like our athletes, we have to compete with the world. Jamaica needs work and production instead of the present reliance on more loans, and dependence on remittances and bilateral grants. Actually, if the ordinary folks in our rural townships and inner cities are to improve and have any hope of a better life then we need an overhaul of the business of government and the business of the nation.
Delroy Chuck is an attorney-at-law and Opposition Member of Parliament. He can be contacted by e-mail at delchuck@hotmail.com.
