Don Robotham, Contributor 
The four contenders for leadership of the PNP (from left), Dr. Peter Phillips, Dr. Karl Blythe, Portia Simpson Miller and Dr. Omar Davies share a joke at the PNP National Executive Council meeting held at the Jamaica Conference Centre last week. Prime Minister P.J. Patterson announced that the special delegates conference to elect a new PNP leader will be held on February 25. The election is to be held at Jamaica College, Hope Road, St. Andrew. - Norman Grindley/ Deputy Chief Photographer
EVO MORALES, the recently-elected President of Bolivia, has announced that he is to cut his presidential salary by 57 per cent. His salary was a little over US$4,186 or J$263,718 per month, and he has cut it to US$1,800 per month or J$113,400. The new Bolivian President will therefore get about J$1.4 million per year.
The law of Bolivia provides that no public sector employee will get more than the President. The result of this action, therefore, is that the salaries of all public sector employees in Bolivia have thus been cut in half by the stroke of a presidential pen. Mr. Morales had promised in his election campaign that he would cut his salary in half. He has fulfilled his promise in the very first cabinet meeting. He has also suggested that the members of the Bolivian Congress follow suit and also cut their salaries likewise. Time will tell whether they do.
BOLIVIA AND JAMAICA
Although it has huge petroleum and natural gas reserves, Bolivia is even poorer than Jamaica. The GDP is slightly larger than that of Jamaica US$8.8 billion compared to US$7.7 billion. However, Bolivia's population is much larger than ours. Their population is nine million while ours is 2.7 million. Thus Gross National Income per person in Bolivia is as low as US$960 per year, while here in Jamaica it is US$2,900 per year about 36 per cent of ours. GDP growth in Bolivia in 2004 was more or less in the same range as Jamaica 3.6 per cent as against two per cent nothing to write home about.
But it is not just a matter of per capita income. Although income distribution figures for both Bolivia and Jamaica are almost impossible to come by, it is an accepted fact that in both countries income distribution is extremely unequal and getting worse, not better. An interesting similarity also is that in both countries there is a racial aspect to the social divisions. In Bolivia, it is the descendants of the Aymara Indians (the vast majority) who are poor and the descendants of the Spanish conquistadors who are rich. In Jamaica, the situation is somewhat different: a wealthy light-skinned elite has been recently joined by a new class of black bourgeois and uptown lumpen.
Believe it or not, social conditions for the Indians in Bolivia are even worse than in Jamaica. Life expectancy is 64.1 years, in comparison to our 75.8 years. Infant mortality is an amazing 53 per thousand, compared to Jamaica's 17 per thousand. Net secondary enrolment in Bolivia is 67 per cent, while in Jamaica it is 74 per cent.
Bolivia has huge petroleum natural reserves but these will take many years to develop. As in the case of Nigeria and other oil-rich countries, even when the oil begins to flow, this does not mean that the general population will experience a significant improvement in their social and economic conditions.
MORAL EXAMPLE
President Morales has suggested that the money saved could be used to provide more teachers and doctors to serve the Bolivian people. Of course, his salary cut will not be enough to hire a significant number of health workers. But it may have larger economic significance all the same. If public sector salaries are cut on this scale, there can be little doubt that it will cut the Bolivian budget deficit and help them to reduce their debt burden. The consequence will be a reduction in interest rates and increased investment in the real Bolivia economy, thereby hopefully reducing unemployment and poverty. These are all problems with which we are struggling in Jamaica as well. So the Bolivian example is highly relevant to our case. But Morales' step is not only of economic significance. The point of it all is its great moral significance.
We could learn from this example in Jamaica, and not only in the public sector. Relative to our GDP and low levels of productivity, salaries at the managerial level in Jamaica are way too high. This applies not only to public sector salaries but also to those in the private sector. As in Jamaica, Bolivia faces a very difficult economic situation and President Morales knows it. Although he may be sympathetic to the plight of the poor Indian groups in Bolivia, he knows that in the near term there is very little he can do to improve their economic circumstances. Even in alliance with the growing group of left-wing countries in Latin America (Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Venezuela and soon Mexico), Morales cannot alter the free market global environment which determines economic and social outcomes in Bolivia and Jamaica. But he can do all he can locally to ameliorate the negative effects and to take advantage of the opportunities of the market.
The point of Morales' salary cut therefore is not only to help the budget, to reduce the debt burden and to stimulate in the real economy. It is also to show that he means it when he says he will put the poor people of Bolivia first. The point is to show that when he calls on the people to sacrifice, which he must, this is not the sort of empty moralistic invocation of 'values and attitudes' which it is common for wealthy politicians to preach in Jamaica. Morales is leading by example.
We sorely need this kind of leadership by example in Jamaica. We have never really had it, even in the 1970s. Today, when the economic pressures on Jamaica are far greater and the room for economic manoeuvre is much smaller, we need leadership by example even more. But not a single candidate for the leadership of the PNP or not one single leader in the JLP has called for this kind of leadership.
Nor have the trade unions. Nor has the Church. Instead of giving leadership, the Church confines itself either to 'bling' or to empty moralistic statements and action which, frankly speaking, cheapen its moral message. If the Church wishes to recover its moral leadership, preaching and praying, however impassioned, will not do it. The Church, like everybody else, must cut back on its own 'bling' culture and then call for real economic sacrifices at the upper levels of our society, starting with themselves.
JAMAICA IS IN CRISIS
We should not fool ourselves. Jamaica is in a very serious economic, social and political crisis. The root of this crisis is the very same one that is affecting all the countries in Latin America, including Bolivia and Argentina. None of our economies are in a position to compete in the international market economy in such a way that the majority of our citizens benefit. All of our countries carry severe debts, budget deficits and other shortfalls. As in the rest of Latin America, the Jamaican population has become deeply alienated from the free market policies which have been in place here since Michael Manley abruptly deregulated the economy after 1989.
But this policy environment is not something we can change. In such a context, leadership does not consist of making absurd promises about what one will do for Jamaica if one is elected. We should not be fooled. No leader can carry out such promises. What we really need is not empty promises but leaders who will lead by example of personal sacrifice.
What alienates the Jamaican people is not the free market policies by themselves. It is the inequality and double standards which pervade the society and its leadership. This leadership talks up a storm about what they will do for Jamaica if put in power, but is deathly silent on what sacrifices they are personally willing to make. The poverty rate remains stubbornly at 17 per cent while they zoom off in their SUVs!
The unemployment rate is down to 12 per cent, but the incomes of the employed are extremely low and the politicians increase their pensions to enormous amounts! The mentality at the top is that of the uptown lumpen black and red. These lumpen are on the edge of power but want to move into the centre. They want to control the state fully so as to rip us off even more. They want to capitalise on the disillusionment of the people exactly in the manner of a 'don' who organises roadblocks and street demonstrations against the police. What does it matter if some of these lumpen are black and others are red?
If the uptown lumpen succeed in gaining political power in Jamaica, we will be moving into the zone currently occupied by Haiti and some African states. We won't have to speculate about whether we are a failed state then. It will be quite clear to all. Like him or not, Morales has put such lumpen to shame. Take sleep and mark death.
