Devon Dick
Some of the advertisements currently being displayed by DB&G are very good.
There is the one in which a distraught-looking young man is listening to the radio and scratching his head, hoping that his Lotto number will play. He got all the numbers correct except the last one. And then the million-dollar question, 'Do you want luck to determine your future?' There is also a touching one with an old man in a hospital bed. In addition, one of my old favourites is the one encouraging smarter work and not harder work.
CREATING A DESIRE
These are good ads because they grab your attention, hold your interest, create a desire to make some useful investment and they tell you what needs to be done and where to go.
In addition, these ads raise the deeper philosophical issue of whether a game of chance should be relied upon to emancipate oneself from poverty.
This year's JCDC's Popular Song winner, Khalil Hassan, wants 'no more poverty'. The country has been subjected to an extensive media campaign encouraging persons to buy lotto and 'step up inna life'. This philosophy of 'baby love' getting her chance to start her business has made lotto appear as a legitimate and preferred way to start a business.
However, this argument is an indictment on the society. The impression is given that luck gives a realistic chance of living a reasonable life and doing something productive. Sadly, it is not borrowing from a bank at reasonable interest rates that will provide this opportunity. Though the odds of winning are so remote, it is believed that one stands a better chance at making it through lottery rather than getting a loan from a bank.
SOCIETY IN TROUBLE
The depressing reality is that one of our leading commercial banks is operating its loan portfolio at 37 per cent of capacity. The society is in trouble when most people do not believe that the way forward is through investment and work.
That is the reason why DB&G's ads are commendable. They are encouraging persons to determine their future through investments rather than relying on the vagaries of gambling.
However, DB&G has to deal with the Jamaican reality and make another step. The thousands of working poor who use thirty dollars to buy a lotto ticket cannot start an investment at DB&G with that amount. DB&G needs some creative strategies to capture that market.
In addition, DB&G and others need to understand that one of the lessons from the Professor John Paul Clarke MIT Study on Air Jamaica is the value of salaries to the economy. In his methodology, he used the salaries of the employees to measure the benefit of Air Jamaica to the Jamaican economy.
Unfortunately, business leaders do not recognise that when employees have unreasonably low salaries for the work done, then those persons will not be able to purchase their goods and services and have a surplus to save and invest. All strong economies pay livable wages and attract competent professionals.
National Hero Sam Sharpe recognised the importance of persons working for pay and he mobilised 50,000 persons to strike in order to be paid for their labour. That action was a catalyst for freedom. Furthermore, the estates in post-emancipation Jamaica and the West Indies that paid workers properly prospered while those that did not, fell to ruin. The latter expected to reap where they did not sow.
DETERMINING OUR FUTURE
What should determine our future - Lotto, hard work, or investments? The findings of the Contractor General and Auditor General at the National Solid Waste Agency and the Angus Report at Operation Pride give the impression that it is 'contacts and contracts' that will enable one 'to step up inna life'. If this ought not to be, then the government should allow the Opposition to appoint persons to these boards using a ratio similar to that in appointing members of the Senate. This could help to minimise the level of recurrence and restore confidence in the value of work. The reports need to recommend disciplinary action, otherwise 'dawg nyam we suppa'.
Good ads, DB&G, and thanks for an alternative worldview on economic empowerment.
Rev Devon Dick is pastor of Boulevard Baptist Church and author of 'Rebellion to Riot: The Church in Nation Building'.
