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Prime Minister P.J. Patterson in conversation with Education Minister Maxine Henry-Wilson at the official opening of the Frome Technical High School campus in Westmoreland in March.
This is the continuation of an interview with Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, the first instalment of which was published yesterday.
GLEANER: What is the time frame for the transformation that we are talking about?
PRIME MINISTER: We have got a report which everybody accepts to be a quality report. Two things have been raised: One, whether sufficient attention was paid to early childhood education.
The response is simple, we have done considerable work on early childhood education, and we are far advanced down the wicket on what has to be done for early childhood education, including the establishment of the Early Childhood Commission. This latest report was really intended to deal with the primary and secondary levels. What is now necessary and what is being done is to bring the two together, so that when we begin this transformation process we are not dealing with two segments, early childhood and primary/secondary, we are dealing with an integrated approach, and that's being done.
FINANCING EDUCATION
PRIME MINISTER: The second point has to do with how we are going to finance the transformation. As you know, I set up a special subgroup to look at that. They have been trying to help to identify resources and looking at a number of areas. Firstly, can the existing provisions be more effectively deployed?
Secondly, are there any elements or organisations within the state or within the country that can be made a part of the contributory framework? I will give a clear instance of two.
HEART has a clear area of specialised training, but at the moment HEART Trust has to be engaged in a level of preparatory training to equip students to undertake the training that HEART was properly conceived to concentrate on.
So the question is, are there some of these resources that can be more effectively spent at the primary and secondary level, and therefore allow HEART to really get a better trained and better educated student.
The other instance is that when you look at some of the need for increases in the physical plan, you see that these have become necessary where there is a bulge in population, and a bulge and increase in housing.
So can we look at some of those institutions which are proximate to where there has been a significant increase in housing? For example, areas in which the NHT has put up additional housing, and say to NHT, you have to be involved in contributing either to helping us provide the space (for a school plant) or to upgrade what is already there.
And then there is another area, and that's external, and already a number of institutions, external institutions, and Governments have been in discussions with us as to areas in which they might help or contribute meaningfully. Now, when we have finished that exercise we have to come to the realty, what is affordable?
And at that time you are going to have to prioritise what you do when you do, but you have to have a plan that enables you to achieve the ultimate objectives. What is very clear, is that you are going to have to make a significant incremental increase to what is provided in the education budget.
FOLLOWING BARBADOS
GLEANER: Prime Minister, please expand on what you were saying earlier about the Barbadian response to the Privy Council's ruling in the Pratt and Morgan case and say, perhaps, how Jamaica might follow their example.
PRIME MINISTER: In Pratt and Morgan the Privy Council decided, basically, that when there is a delay in the execution of the death penalty beyond five years, it constitutes, in effect, cruel and inhumane punishment contrary to the provisions of our Constitution. That was a departure from an earlier decision which the Privy Council itself had taken in the case called Riley and the Attorney-General of Jamaica.
It also held in another case, this time involving Trinidad and Tobago, that conditions in which persons are held under sentence of death while in prison, could also constitute cruel and inhumane punishment, and that was also a departure from an earlier case of Fisher and the Minister of Public Safety and Immigration.
And in a case called The Queen v Hugh and Fox v The Queen, the law lords declared that mandatory death sentences were unconstitutional despite provisions in our Constitution which we thought were to the contrary. As a result of all of this, the Privy Council, our local Privy Council that is, was having great difficulty in terms of how they review cases that come before them. This is so because, in the Neville Lewis Case, they were saying that the execution of a death sentence by a decision of the Jamaica Privy Council in relation to the exercise of prerogative of mercy has to consider the report of any international human rights body.
What, in effect, they were doing was really bringing in a treaty provision and the ruling of an external body that has no judicial competence as part of the consideration. This is very contrary to the approach they have taken in respect of the CCJ and the establishment of it by treaty among the countries of the Caribbean.
As a consequence of all of that, the Government of Barbados in 2001 amended the Constitution to reverse those decisions. The amendment said, in essence, that you shouldn't hold in contravention of the Constitution the imposition of a mandatory sentence of death or the execution of sentence, as well as any delay in executing a sentence of death imposed on a person in respect of a criminal offence under the law of Barbados of which he has been convicted.
That was passed in Barbados by two-thirds majority, that is to say with the concurrence of the Opposition.
It is about that I wrote Mr. Seaga , the former leader of the Opposition on the 4th of December, 2002 and I have never gotten a reply to it.
GLEANER: That would obviate the need to adhere to the five year rule?
PRIME MINISTER: That would be so.
GLEANER: Mr. Prime Minister, relatively speaking you are near the end of your innings as Prime Minister and Leader of the People's National Party.
Do you think that you have been unfairly assessed in the time that you have been a Prime Minister and leader of the party in terms of your own accomplishments, your own leadership vis-a-vis your predecessor. Have people appreciated you for what you personally have done?
PRIME MINISTER: Every leader has to be judged by the particular time in which he had this special responsibility. No decade is the same. The situation of Bustamante and the situation of Norman Manley were two different periods in office, although they were both contemporaries in search for political office. Certainly the situation in the 1970s were totally different from the situation in the 1990's and the first portion of the new millennium. Even if you examine or compare what happened between 1972 and 1980 and between 1989 and 1992 when Mr. Manley demitted office, you would find that there were changes which were necessary because of the difference in the world environment and our own national situation.
It is not so much the comparison; I think one has to be judged on what has been achieved. Even between 1992 and 2005, as we speak, there have been significant changes in global forces and the environment in which we operate.
To give you perhaps some of the most obvious: We no longer live in a world of two super powers. The whole international economic environment is vastly different, as we have seen, for example, with even our relationships with the European Union and the coming into being of the World Trade Organisation. Look on the effect it has had on our Banana Industry, look at the threats which are imposed on our Sugar Industry. These are new situations with which we have to deal.
Economic policies that could have been pursued in the 70s and even in the 80s no longer can be applied today. For example, the days of protectionism are over, and we have to operate in that reality.
MOST CRITICISED PM
In addition, we have opened the media landscape more widely than at any other time, and in the course of doing so people have more access to express themselves freely and opinions are more disparate and sometimes expressed in more strident terms than was the case before. I don't think any Prime Minister has been subject to the search light and the continuing scrutiny that I have been.
I don't think any Prime Minister has been subject to the barrage of criticisms that I have been, but it hasn't prevented me from winning three consecutive elections. It must say something, that I have managed to command some level of confidence and enjoy some level of support in the country, and all those elections have been won with manifest improvements to our electoral system. So that even in the last situation where we had the results more closely, 34- 26, as they now are, not only have the results been accepted, I don't think one election petition has been filed. I don't want to say history will absolve me, but as I come to the closing period I expect that the verdict of history will be favourable.
GLEANER: Sir, is it going to take a very long period of campaigning to replace you, because the campaigning has started? Is a long period of campaigning good for the country and good for the party?
PRIME MINISTER: I think it depends on how it is done. We have a job of work to do. Insofar as those who have positions, whether in the government or the party are concerned, I have made it clear that whatever campaigning they do must not be to the detriment of the times they need to spend in doing what is entrusted to them by way of ministerial responsibility or political responsibility.
GLEANER: There have been comments that Minister Portia Simpson Miller does not have the intellectual capacity to lead. What are your views on this?
PRIME MINISTER: I have never shared that view. She is a person who has been in the Government from 1989. She has held three separate portfolios and I don't doubt that, certainly, in terms of leadership she will bring and be able to attract the necessary skills which are required for the success of the of the administration. In the same way I entertain no doubt about the other candidates to bring those skills and to be able to win electoral support, provided they maintain the unity of the team and provided they can attract the new energies which are necessary to take us into the next successful term.
GLEANER: What are the qualities you want to see in you successor?
PRIME MINISTER: The party to which I belong is a party that has always had a vision, has always been committed to certain fundamental beliefs. That includes promoting democracy, securing economic growth, respect for human rights and justice, promoting civil liberties, securing growth in a manner consistent with social equity, recognising that we are part of the Caribbean.
Although we are a sovereign nation we want to promote regional development, and seeking essentially to improve the quality of life of all our people. That's our mission. I would like -- and I am confident from those who offer themselves -- that anybody who is successful, when the time comes will be equally committed to the pursuit of that mission. They may have to set new priorities, new targets, they may have to adjust the timetable for the achievement of certain goals which are necessary for the future, they may articulate that mission statement perhaps in - I suspect - in a rather different way from that which I have used. But I don't really have any fear from those who are offering themselves that whoever emerges will have the commitment and the capacity to take the mission that much further.
GLEANER: Mr. Patterson, we have spoken about a great number of things so let's now turn to your legacy. Besides being known as the Don Bradman or the Rocky Mar-ciano of Jamaican politics, how would you like to be remembered, and seeing that all the chairs at UWI have been taken. What are your immediate plans following your departure from representational politics?
PRIME MINISTER: I'd like to be remembered as somebody who led the process of the transformation of the Jamaican economy and the development of the society to meet the global competition which we face and also to enable Jamaica as a country to be a pedestal for the world in all fields of endeavour
We certainly have done it in sports, we have done it in music, but I think Jamaicans are talented people and I think there is nothing that we can't achieve once we put our minds and are united in the purpose. I would hope that I have made some contribution that would enable us to do so. As far as what I will do in the future, one thing I know I will do, is to engage in some writing, and I propose to devote some of my spare time to that.
GLEANER: Could you indicate to us whether or not you have given a clear indication within the party as to when you will be going and if you will be around for the next annual conference of the PNP?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes, I will be around for the next annual conference. Well, I was elected two weeks ago and I remain the leader until September. Certainly up to the time nominations are invited I am the leader of the party.
GLEANER: But you gave a long list of things, sir, that you wanted accomplished, and it does seem to have extended beyond September.
PRIME MINISTER: No, no. Sorry. You choose to forget what I said. I said that it was no indication that I was going to stay around for a long period of time. It simply means that I would become very eager and determined to complete what has to be done within the time frame that I have set. If you go through it you will notice a difference between those things that I am going to open, because they are complete; those things for which I am going to break ground; and those things where we have to engage in - finalising some studies that would not leave my successor with a legacy where some very, very serious problems had not been the subject of settled approaches.
GLEANER: Your writing will be in the spare time, sir?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, let's put it clearly. From time to time I read some articles about whether I am going to the United Nations or whether I am going to CARICOM to do some negotiations or I even read one about ambitions for the CCJ. I can say simply, none of those.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, I regard all the time as being my own. I have three grandchildren and I intend to spend some time with them that I couldn't spend with my children.
Coming tomorrow: 'The Making of a Political Leader'
INTERVIEWING TEAM: Garfield Grandison, Jenni Campbell, Ken Allen, Colin Steer, Earl Moxam, Brian Bonitto, Garwin Davis, Byron Buckley. Photographer: Rudolph Brown.
