Turning Jamaica around
published: Wednesday | January 1, 2003

Delroy Chuck

AT THE start of the New Year, it is fitting to reflect on the past year and contemplate the prospects for the coming year. Whatever our memories of 2002 may be, of joy and happiness, of successfully overcoming challenges and difficulties, or even of sadness and disappointment, let us cling to them, perhaps just for comparison, as 2003 will surely bring greater challenges and more difficulties than the nation has hitherto experienced. In 2003, Jamaica will be faced with some tough choices and how or whether we choose will determine our fate for many years to come.

As I contemplate on where we are heading, I am convinced the country is on the wrong course. I need not go through the litany of woes, hardships and decay, to make my point - it must by now be evident to everyone. Like every other true and committed Jamaican, I want the best for Jamaica. I want a Jamaica of which we can feel proud, to which Jamaicans abroad can hope to return and to retire, in which our children can develop and find jobs and opportunities, and where others, visitors or expatriates, can feel at home. I want a Jamaica where citizens can find, inter alia, peace and prosperity, safety and security, an improving quality of life, openness and transparency, and respect for the rights and freedoms of others. I want a Jamaica governed by the rule of law, subject to accountability and responsibility when things go wrong, and possessed of an efficient machinery to secure justice and redress wrongdoings.

Jamaica can become the country we all want it to be, so why are we not making the grade? When I talk to foreigners, they lament how beautiful and resourceful Jamaica and Jamaicans are; yet we are unable to put it together or to extricate ourselves from the perennial mess in which we sink. I have no doubt that Jamaica's primary problem is the failure of leadership at all levels. When things go wrong, leadership must take the blame and allow the buck to stop somewhere. But who in Jamaica takes responsibility for anything? When things go wrong, there is an abundance of creative excuses to explain every error or mishap. Why do we have so much wrongdoing, malpractice, corruption, injustice, and downright thievery? Quite simply, wrongs are rationalised and justified, so no one is held responsible or even expects to be held responsible.

Jamaica needs to turn around and to do so quickly. We are heading in the wrong direction and, thankfully, even if belatedly, it is now being recognised. My friend and colleague, Dr. Omar Davies, the Minister of Finance, is a most unlucky man and, undoubtedly, a poor economic forecaster. For the better part of 10 years, he has been promising economic growth of 2-4 per cent annually, balanced budgets, lower interest rates, and a healthy economy, but for one reason or another, not one of his predictions has materialised. During his tenure in office, our national debt has more than doubled and his insatiable appetite for more borrowing will surely triple the debt, soon. When is he going to recognise that his economic model, based on the powerful monetary tool of high interest rate, has not and cannot work?

I well remember Dr. Davies' stellar performance some four years ago, trying to convince the country to buy into his economic model. Can we truly say his model has worked? Was the doubling of the national debt worth the price of pursuing the model? Has the economy grown or is it even in a position to grow? I believe that if the country is to turn around then it is time for Dr. Davies to discard the dastardly moribund economic model, which is responsible for most of the ills of the nation.

The Minister of Agriculture, Roger Clarke, recently admitted that not one agricultural crop is doing well. In fact, ask any Minister of Government if there is any area of their portfolio that is doing well, or of which they can be proud. It is a dismal situation, and it relates to the ruinous economic model that Dr. Davies is pursuing, which aims to mop up liquidity, stabilise the currency, control inflation and, concomitantly, strangle and destroy the economy. How can any agricultural crop do well when it is cheaper to import anything usually grown here? How come we no longer manufacture soap, toothpaste, tyres, steel, razor blades, prescription drugs, baby feeds, and many other products, which are within our competence and economy of scale to produce? Is it not clear that the economic policy is wrong?

The real tragedy is that where Ministers don't learn and act accordingly, the market will punish their efforts and eliminate their inefficiency. Dr. Davies' model is inefficient, defies rationality and will be duly discarded by the market. That, indeed, is the strength of capitalism. It does not allow inefficiency to continue forever. Dr. Davies will soon learn what history and experience have taught so many governments and socialist economic regulators; that the market is more powerful than ministers.

Jamaica will turn around but it will only begin when the errors and inefficiency of the present economic policies are exposed and discarded. Sadly, the present leadership lack the political guts to take the hard, tough, decisions to start the process. The hard economic choices will not be taken, so we must await the judgement and power of the market, which cannot be far away, but when that time comes, and very likely in 2003, Jamaica will be in for a rude awakening.

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