Delroy Chuck
For most of its over 17 year tenure, the government has failed to balance the books and, through its fiscal recklessness, has taken the country ever closer to outright bankruptcy. In truth, the Government is already insolvent and without regular loans and increasing remittances would, like most Jamaicans, have fallen 'flat on its face'. The Prime Minister can speak as loudly as she can about balancing people's lives, it becomes impossible and meaningless if we fail to balance the books.
Actually, if the Prime Minister wants to balance people's lives, she can start by providing reasonable settlements with the nurses, teachers and police. They have been treated shabbily and paid much less than their worth. Yet, they are the professionals who deal most directly with our people - care, train and protect them. Our nurses, teachers and police barely survive on their present salaries. More significantly, their professional image and reputation continue to deteriorate. Most secretaries, clerks, construction foremen, drivers, and even some helpers, many without training or qualification, make more than these highly trained professionals. If their professions are to maintain any remaining integrity and respect, the nurses, teachers and police must stand firm.
Full responsibility
To be sure, the Government must take full responsibility for its inability to pay its trained professionals properly. During its tenure, it has downsized and bailed out friends, private sector interests and unwisely pumped money into failed public sector entities when they should have been allowed to stand on their own or sink. In the mid-'90s, when the financial institutions were in trouble, financial analysts touted a $20-billion bail-out plan, which would probably have resolved the problem. But no, the Government waited, and waited, until these
institutions were on the verge of collapse, took over most of them, and burdened the country with a bail-out rescue of over $120 billion.
The sugar industry should have been sold to prudent private sector interests long ago. United Estates, Appleton Estates and other private interests would have taken over most of these publicly-owned estates for nothing, managed them well and removed the burden from the taxpayers. But no, the Government wants to maintain control and, when good sense finally prevails and these estates are eventually closed or privatised, the burden to the taxpayers over the years will most likely exceed $20 billion. Air Jamaica should have remained in private hands. But no, the Government relieved Butch Stewart of his burden and shifted the burden to the Jamaican taxpayers to the tune of $50 billion and climbing.
Since 1989, the overall government sector has ballooned from under 80,000 public sector employees (see Appendix vii of the 1999 Orane Task Force Report) to probably over 120,000 at the present time. An insolvent government cannot afford so many employees. The first MoU, to my sure knowledge, was a temporary respite for over 10,000 public sector employees, during which time they would be retrained and allowed to seek employment elsewhere. Nothing useful happened in two years, so a second MoU was quickly agreed to avoid the tough decision of downsizing the public sector. The inevitable consequence is that the more deserving public sector employees - nurses, teachers and police - cannot get decent salaries.
Our leaders must take the tough, hard, decisions of downsizing government, saying no even when it hurts friends and supporters, and be
prepared to pursue fiscally-prudent policies that can save, perhaps extract us from bankruptcy.
Delroy Chuck is an attorney-at-law and Member of Parlia-ment. He can be contacted by email at delchuck@hotmail.com.
