PRIME MINISTER Portia Simpson Miller has recently been recommitting herself to the poor, declaring her willingness to confront any 'bangarang' in service to their cause.
We agree with the Prime Minister, except that we are not certain that Mrs Simpson Miller has yet defined broadly enough that fight in which she is willing to engage on their behalf. Her commitment has so far been a declaration of intent but not to specifics as well as an outline of a decision to raid the National Insurance Fund for cash to finance a micro-investment programme.
In the event, therefore, we wish to commend to Mrs. Simpson Miller a matter of great substance that would be of great value to poor people: the speech last week by Keith Duncan, the CEO of Jamaica Money Market Brokers (JMMB), at a luncheon of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce. Indeed, it is an issue on which Mrs Simpson Miller touched in her first speech as Prime Minister after she was sworn in at King's House.
Mr Duncan, like many Jamaicans, is concerned as Mrs. Simpson Miller says she is - about mismanagement and corruption in the country, especially in the public sector where taxpayers' money is at stake. So in his Montego Bay speech, Mr. Duncan tagged this as an issue to be addressed by the Government as a matter of priority. As Mr. Duncan put it, there should be 'zero tolerance' of the wasteful and corrupt in the public sector. People who steal or put at risk the people's resources should be jailed and/or fired. This, of course, was the implied promise of Mrs. Simpson Miller when she said in that King's House speech that corruption will not be tolerated in her administration.
Mrs Simpson Miller could hardly do more for the poor if she keeps her promise, especially now that it is clear that she does not stand alone on this matter and has the backing of influential private sector interests. Here are some returns for Mrs Simpson Miller and her Government from a crusade against waste and corruption, which should energise the Prime Minister into action. As Mrs. Simpson Miller would be aware, a substantial portion of all government spending, including on social welfare and infrastructure, are justified on the benefits that they will ostensibly bring to the poor.
The Prime Minister is likely to be aware that a substantial portion of such capital outlay never brings any value to the intended beneficiaries and in that sense goes to 'waste'. The anecdotal information suggests that up to 20 per cent of capital spending ends this way. Poor people would be happier if more of the cash was spent on the intended projects.
When we fail to do this, projects are not only left unfinished, but additional money has to be found later on to complete them, depriving other programmes of money that might have been allocated to them. The money that is siphoned off, going into the pocket of the corrupt, for which there is no corresponding output, is likely to be inflationary. Moreover, when the Government gets no value for its capital outlay and has to spend more to achieve what should already have been done, it is more difficult for the administration to meet fiscal targets.
The point is fighting waste and corruption is a win-win option - for the Government and the citizenry.
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