Progress needed
published: Monday | December 12, 2005

THE EDITOR, Sir:

AN ARTICLE written by Mr. Moeletsi Mbeki (brother of the South Africa President) was recently published in the local press and referred to a study by Oxford University which revealed that the old Commodity Boards, which we inherited from our colonial past, are very unproductive means of doing business, whether in production, processing, marketing or exporting and these operations should be scrapped.

DISCUSSED AT LENGTH

This matter was discussed at length on some local radio programmes and the conclusion of the Oxford University study matches the sentiments of those of us who are committed to the imperatives of modern management and the concept of the market economy.We would be pleased if our ministers of government, particularly our Prime Minister and Minister of Finance, display that they have the best interests of Jamaica at heart, and ask one of their bright officers to get a hold of this study and see if we can benefit from this research.

Mind you, many of us have reached this conclusion long ago and urged that we scrap these inefficient boards which the government have come to view as holy cows with unerring title to our hard earned taxes as chronic subsidy - these are the Coffee Board, The Cocoa Board, The Sugar Board, you name them. If you take a hard nose look at these, they are mere hindrances to efficient execution of economic objectives. Jamaica needs efficient operations and economic progress more than anything else.

I am, etc.,

L. A. BERT RAMSAY

bert@cwjamaica.com