Robert BuddanJAMAICA IS being overwhelmed at the moment by leadership changes in politics.
The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) is in the midst of historic changes and the People's National Party (PNP) is moving in the same direction. Party conferences in January and February will be alive with processing these changes.
In 2005/6, the Jamaican party and parliamentary systems of
leadership will look very different. One specific area in which changes are taking place is in national security considering the change in police commissioners.
Dr. Peter Phillips has launched his candidacy for president of the PNP. It is an interesting convergence that the leader of government business in the House is the Minister of National Security, Dr. Phillips himself, while the leader of Opposition business in the House is the shadow minister for national security, Mr. Derrick Smith.
This indicates the importance of national security in the eyes of the two parties. Both men are deputy leaders of their respective parties. Dr. Phillips is a leading candidate to be PNP president and prime minister while Mr. Smith was a leading candidate to be leader of the Opposition.
In fact, Mr. Smith claimed that as leader of opposition business in the House he was the natural choice to succeed Mr. Seaga as leader of the opposition.
NATIONAL SECURITY
AND LEADERSHIP
Should Dr. Phillips succeed to the prime ministership, he would be following in the tradition of Tony Blair who was shadow home secretary (the British equivalent of national security).
The Conservative Party had traditionally attacked the Labour Party as soft on crime. Mr. Blair, therefore, decided to be tough on crime and its causes. The British have tried to address their law and order problems with stronger emphasis on enforcing the rule of law, enlisting the community, and going back to basic law enforcement.
Dr. Phillips' administration has made a similar thrust. In 2004, he declared that no one would be above the law.
The government of which he is a member has launched a Public Order Act. The Phillips-Forbes partnership has emphasised community policing which is to be continued.
However, some British reforms have not taken place in Jamaica. The British Home Office introduced reforms in 1993/94 along the lines of new public management.
It required performance targets for violent crimes, independence for local police authorities acting as corporate bodies and more emphasis on local crime-fighting plans.
I am not aware that the Jamaican Ministry of National Security has undergone any comprehensive reforms. But Dr. Phillips would be aware of the difference that reforms can make since he was minister of health, one of the ministries that have enjoyed modernisation. It might be warranted to have a task force on security along the lines of the task force on education and to recommend some of the changes in the structure of the Ministry of National Security that have been made for the Ministry of Education, Youth and Community Development.
It would be a good way to commit the nation to
finding ways to fund the huge resources needed for security and to educate and train a police force for the new century. Just as the task force on education establishes targets and envisages a first-class education system by 2015, so, too, should the Ministry of Security establish targets to create a first class system of national security by that time.
Dr. Phillips agrees that Jamaica needs strong institutions if we are to tackle our problems competently and effectively. This might be a good way to begin.
Dr. Phillips has said that education will be another of his priorities. Indeed, the resolution of law and order problems and of education problems goes together. The British approach has linked security with policies that improve education, reduce truancy, enhance training for unemployed youths, and increase provisions for youth recreation.
ZERO TOLERANCE
Dr. Phillips and Dr. Davies should understand that many of their supporters are in favour of zero tolerance and admire Mayor Giuliani's success in New York.
In 1996, Britain's Shadow Home Secretary, Jack Straw,
visited New York to examine Giuliani's zero tolerance policing strategy. Giuliani's strategy reduced the murder rate in New York from 2,245 in 1990 to 983 in 1995, falling below 1,000 for the first time since 1968.
The strategy was based on the broken-windows thesis. This said that one broken window leads to further vandalism and more serious criminal acts follow.
Immediate intervention is, therefore, needed even against mundane anti-social acts like begging, street prostitution and graffiti.
Britain introduced zero tolerance in 1996. It was not just rising crime that faced Britain but increasing anti-social behaviour, falling confidence in the police and justice system, and increasing costs of compensation for police misconduct
Better policing helps all round. It makes citizens feel safe and secure, helps businesses to prosper, increases trust in government, and saves on the cost of government when it has to clean up the mess of crime and misbehaviour. Britain's crime rate is now below the average for the EU.
Dr. Phillips has established good relations with British and American authorities in fighting crime. To meet the costs of doing all the above, he might consider this. Britain has just agreed to write off a certain amount of Tanzania's debt if Tanzania uses 10 per cent of what it saves for poverty.
If Jamaica introduces ministry reforms with a zero-tolerance policy, it will win sympathy from the United States and Britain. We could ask that if a certain amount of debt is written off we would use a
portion to fight crime in a debt for security arrangement.
It seems to me that the critical part of Dr. Phillips' campaign is that about building strong institutions. Strong institutions, he would emphasise, must be present in national security, education and economic development.
ROLE OF THE STATE
Dr. Phillips, it seems, wants us to revisit the question and develop new answers for the role of the state in development.
For instance, he wants the state to play a more sensitive and direct role in assisting small and medium enterprises (SMEs). He speaks of a mentoring role and a link between education with entrepreneurship.
For those of us who study the role of the state, this means we have to go beyond governance issues in general and the belief that the market mechanism is sufficient to create sustainable business.
The state should be that mechanism that compensates for market and social failure. One of the problems to overcome is the culture of business.
We have treated small business as informal. Small businesses have had to rely on households for their funding, management, and labour. Big business has well-established access to banks, incentives, industrial legislation, and the whole paraphernalia of government.
Small business did not have to be marginalised the way it has been. If colonial governments had listened to the emancipated people over 100 years ago, a new
economy would have replaced the plantation economy by the turn of the 1900s. If this is what Dr. Phillips now proposes, then he will be going in a direction I have long believed in.
SMALL BUSINESSES
One of the differences in the economic performance of developed and developing countries is the support given to SMEs in the former. Although we associate large corporations with developed economies, the truth is that 99 per cent of all businesses in North America and Europe are SMEs.
Globally, 80 per cent of economic growth comes from SMEs. SMEs provide 70 per cent of the jobs in the EU. However, for Jamaica, they are a relatively untapped engine of properly
documented growth.
SMEs have special needs because of their limited resources in terms of personnel, finances and knowledge as these relate to management, marketing, commercialisation, and communications technology. How we overcome this leads back to the state.
Some countries do better than others in realising the potential of SMEs. One reason for failure is the entrenched orientations of educational, public sector and private sector organisations.
Another is the failure of big business to appreciate the value of SME partnerships. A third is the lack of understanding of the local environment of SMEs on the part of external agencies.
Dr. Davies and Dr. Phillips have given us things to think about in their campaigns. Hopefully,
now that the JLP's leadership battles are winding down, that party's new and emerging leaders can focus more on issues of
development as well.
Now that Mr. Seaga has removed himself from the turbulence of day-to-day politics, he has the opportunity to put his vision on paper for us all to be guided by.
Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies, Mona. Email: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm
