Mike Henry, Member of Parliament, Central Clarendon
(In a letter to the Editor)
IT IS with bewilderment that I view the most recent national focus on the continued failure of the Government's economic model. Bewilderment because despite its own particular shortcomings, the current Government, it must be reasonably said, has not been alone with regard to failed economic policies.
Now don't get me wrong, as our history records 1967 to 1972 as the best period of national economic growth in the country and much of the 1980s, such as 1983, were relatively good economic times too. I need not emphasise that the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) was in power during these two periods, as that is not the focus of this letter.
In fact, my focus is to get Jamaicans, including both the Government and the Opposition, to reflect, understand and appreciate that one of the root causes of our failed or marginally successful economic policies for many decades now, has been the continued undercounting of our population. We started undercounting from back in 1938 or before and we have just never really stopped to take stock of the continuing negative impact of that error since then.
The reality of the situation is that after registering the best period of growth in the country's history, between 1967 and 1972, the JLP was virtually thrown out of office. Why? Because although there was excellent growth - you can't expect better than six per cent per annum - it wasn't being felt to the same extent on the ground, as, I contend that there remained a serious variance between the official and actual populations of the country, which is being compounded daily.
That scenario has continued to dog the country's economic policies, be they of JLP or PNP (People's National Party) governments. Simply put, if you continually undercount and do not have your statistics right, everything you predicate creates its own problems, so every economic model is going to be wrong.
This is even though the past two decades have witnessed a growing recognition on the part of governments, policymakers and planners, of the interdependence among population, development and the environment, resulting in more population concerns being incorporated into national development strategies.
Of course, even with the best will in the world, with flawed and inadequate data collection, as we evidently have in Jamaica, it is difficult to get any development strategy right. From a practical standpoint, the inadequacies of the current statistics have meant that important indicators such as age specific birth rates and the total fertility rate, cause specific death rates, maternal mortality and important life table measures, cannot be produced. Likewise, current estimates of the infant mortality rate, which is internationally recognised as a very important indicator in the assessment of a country's level of development and standard of living, are not available for Jamaica.
The problem is further compounded when we have a government that is registering precious little growth and in some instances, negative growth. When that scenario puts the 'recognised' segment of the population in a tailspin, can you imagine the realities of the hundreds of thousands of Jamaicans who were not even factored into the economic model of the day?
If one was to ask Finance Minister, Dr. Omar Davies, of the country's present population, for which the Government's current economic model was designed and is being implemented, he would no doubt readily say we have 2.6 million people in Jamaica. But like others in the Central Clarendon constituency I represent in Parliament, I know the official population figure for May Pen hardly accounts for many more than the school age children of the fast growing town. Likewise, if we were to get the real population figure for Portmore in St. Catherine, we would be able to see how way-out our national planning has been and continues to be.
So without the will to face reality and account for our entire population in both overall numbers and make-up, government after government simply continues the population charade because it helps to make the performance figures look better than they really are.
But what of Jamaicans who deserve better? Don't they deserve even a fighting chance of realising real progress as members of a society with such tremendous potential but, alas, one mired in such hopelessness and despair, economically?
It's time to start counting our people more, not just in acclaim, but, critically important, in numbers too. That is my humble submission, so that we can recognise the truth of the required growth needed to satisfy the needs of all our citizens.
