Martin Henry
WHAT DO you do with an extra $10,000 million per year?
The paratrooper has landed bearing the PetroCaribe deal.
Under the PetroCaribe agreement, Jamaica will be obtaining 21,000 barrels of Venezuelan crude oil per day under credit conditions that will generate a windfall of up to 10 thousand million dollars per year.
As a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Venezuela cannot just offer Caribbean countries cheaper oil than the set OPEC price.
PetroCaribe is a clever road around the cartelised pricing restrictions of OPEC. Hopefully, not too clever to work well and last long.
NO SAVINGS AT PUMPS
An outgoing Prime Minister anxious to give the people memorable parting gifts while boosting the sagging fortunes of his political party to help his successor as party leader remain as Prime Minister, might be sorely tempted to use this dream deal to lower gas price.
Mr Patterson has wisely, indeed courageously, decided not to use PetroCaribe benefits to reduce gas price, even in the face of national protests over high prices on the day of the regional signing.
He has frankly advised party delegates at conference that prices at the pump would not be lowered. That's not the kind of news that party leaders normally choose to deliver themselves to the faithful assembled for high days.
At the personal selfish level, the number one item on my PetroCaribe wish list would be for reduced fuel prices.
But with oil prices climbing and consumption climbing, the craziest thing Government could do with the PetroCaribe windfall would be to use the money to push down pump prices.
The signal to the market would be that the crisis is easing and consumption should go up.
Plus money would be siphoned off from long-term capital development projects which alone could justify incurring this additional debt, however soft.
TRAIN ENVIRO AGENTS
The Dominican Republic has just announced fuel-saving measures in response to the oil price crisis.
The petroleum industry is dirty business shegging up the whole world. I couldn't agree with the Prime Minister more that portions of the funds from the PetroCaribe Deal should be used for environmental projects.
He has mentioned reforestation, drainage and river training. I have proposed before marrying environmental conservation and upgrading with youth employment.
We have the money now. Let's do it. Train and deploy thousands of young people as enviro agents of various sorts.
And let's remember the importance of cultivated green space and use some PetroCaribe dollars for the greening of Jamaican urbanscapes as part of the environmental and attitudes and values thrusts.
PetroCaribe is necessary in the first place because of escalating costs for dirty oil.
Some of the dollars should go towards a major programme for energy conservation and pulling more alternative energy sources into the country's energy mix.
The Government is finding $500 million to appease teachers trapped in the MOU restricting wage rises.
Students have no unions and have forgotten how to lock down things as student leader and Manley disciple Patterson would understand.
As Venezuela has lent to us, so let us lend to students. I would love to see some PetroCaribe dollars pumped into the Student Loan Bureau to hasten the day when any tertiary student in any approved course of study in any recognized institution can obtain a loan with no needs test and only a guarantee to pay back (and at much lower interest rates. PC interest is one per cent!).
At the other end of the education system, let's pump some PC dollars into the base of the education revolution at early childhood and early primary with one single overarching goal: the dramatic improvement of literacy in the broadest modern sense of the word.
LOW-COST HOUSING
Mr. Patterson wants to be remembered as the housing prime minister.
When I was a rural youngster, there was a programme under which poor people were assisted with really low-cost starter shelters to which they could add. The people had to find the bit of land on which to put the structure.
It was marvelous what ambitious people did with those basic units. Poor people cannot normally get benefits from the National Housing Trust.
I want to see some PC dollars used to resurrect that old housing programme, perhaps with some crown lands being made available at peppercorn rates.
The scheme can be a genuine revolving loan scheme as people pay down their small loans for the unit with the Government not seeking to make a profit.
In the same breath, can I ask for some PC dollars specifically for rural development projects.
Patterson bows out as MP for Eastern Westmoreland. How much more rural can you get?
But as we go rural, let's not forget to use a few PC dollars to pump up the chicken feed financing for the Community Security Initiative (CSI) aimed at replacing dons in 'gang-dominated' inner-city communities.
The CSI, if it ever works radically well, will change the face of post-Patterson politics.
Martin Henry is a communications specialist.
