Bruce Golding, Leader of the Opposition. - file
In our lead story, we carried a story in which Opposition Leader Bruce Golding set out his agenda for the first hundred days of a new Jamaica Labour Party administration.
In this feature, we present excerpts from Mr. Golding's extensive interview with Earl Moxam.
EM: Mr. Golding, at this stage in the election cycle, wouldn't you want the JLP to be better positioned against the governing People's National Party?
BG: No, I think that we are well positioned. We have been working to a programme that involves putting in place the organisation in the constituencies with special emphasis on those constituencies where the organisation was less than what we wanted it to be. We are very well positioned. We know which seats we expect to win and we are determined to bring those home.
EM: So, if you were to do a seat-by-seat breakdown, would you say that you are, at this time, poised to win the next election?
BG: Oh, yes! We are ahead! What we're working on now is to try and increase that seat count. But we have a clear margin at this time. There are still some marginal seats that we want to tighten up the organsiation in and interestingly, there are one or two seats that we wouldn't normally be targeting but, based on the work that we have been doing in those seats, and based on the work we have been doing in those constituencies, and based on the readings we've been getting, we are going to add them to the target list.
EM: That would seem to be counter-intuitive against the background of poll findings and suggestions, some of them not particularly flattering to you, as leader of the JLP. How would you respond to that?
BG: You believe polls? In the last election a poll came out two days before the election that said we were nine points behind. What the results show? Fifty-two: Forty-eight. We're focused; we have a job of work to do. We have set out targets and we are working towards those targets.
EM: But surely, it must be somewhat disheartening for your candidates and supporters if at a particular point in time, even if you believe as you do, that they would like to see their own perceptions being reflected in the national polls?
BG: You evidently, Earl, have not been listening to the people on the ground. I've heard a couple of responses on the radio; people have spoken to us. I don't think the people are impressed with it either. We are interested in just one poll - election-day poll, when the people actually go out and vote. The Eastern Westmoreland by-election was significant. Significant! Because if there was an election that ought to have reflected this hype and excitement, it wasn't there. It's the lowest turnout of any contested by-election except for one in South St. Catherine some years ago. The fact is that what is happening is that if you leave the Corporate Area and stay off the front page of the newspapers and get out there into the country parts, you will find that there are persons who live in communities that have been cut off since Hurricane Ivan (September 2004) and it's almost as if they have fallen off the map of Jamaica! Do you think those people find any hope in this government? Do you think those people consider that the Prime Minister is so brand new that they can hope that now that she is Prime Minister something will be done? Many of these roads are local government roads for which she had ministerial responsibility.
When we talk about rural development, we are not just mouthing argument. I'm prepared to commit 2.5 per cent of the national budget to fund rural development through the Constituency Development Fund. It's an issue that some people in the media have criticised but I'm so firm about it that it's not funny. Because I don't know how you can ask people to have faith. Not in a Government, but in a system, to invest that faith and having done that, they are simply taken off the agenda altogether!
EM: How do you guarantee full accountability and efficiency of the deployment and use of those funds?
BG: These are not funds that are going to be available to Members of Parliament. Members of Parliament are going to be required to submit development plans for their constituencies. Those development plans will not belong to the MPs alone; they're going to have to be developed through a consultative committee in each constituency. That must involve his opponent; must involve civic groups in the constituency. The whole process of consultation and the submission and implementation of the project must be carried out, not by the Member of Parliament, but by the relevant government agencies, whether it is the Works Agency, Rural Electrification, whatever, but it is going to be monitored by the Political Ombudsman to ensure that it is not being 'partisanly' manipulated. In addition to that, a special unit is going to be set up within the Auditor-General's department to ensure that, unlike the normal audit that the Auditor-General does - sample audits - in this case, this special unit is going to be required to audit every single penny; a 100 per cent audit, to ensure that the funds are properly spent and that we get value for it and to ensure that the projects that are implemented are in keeping with what was submitted and what was approved by Parliament.
EM: Based on what you are saying in respect of constituency development, it would seem that the call for the establishment of the office of the Member of Parliament, not a party office but a constituency office for the MP, is all the more important.
BG: Clear commitment! You can take that as a clear commitment from us. Interestingly, that was a proposal that I put forward from the 1970s and every now and then it has been mooted. It has never really been done. The Public Health Inspector has an office, because he is supposed to serve the public. The Mayor has his parlour; he's serving the public. The Superintendent of Police has an office. The Member of Parliament is the only one who doesn't! Do you know what is provided to a Member of Parliament now to run an office? Twenty-five thousand dollars a month! You can't pay a secretary with that! And that's part of the difficulty that Members of Parliament face.
EM: Your critics in the media have sometimes said that the JLP wants to be all things to all people as it seeks to gain national office. How do you respond?
BG: I don't know what's the basis of that. As a matter of fact, one of the criticisms we get from our own people is that we're not making sufficient commitments to the people of Jamaica and I keep saying to them that we're not going to make commitments that we can't fulfil. When we speak, for example, of abolishing cost sharing (in secondary schools) we know how much that is going to cost. It costs $900 million a year because that is what is being collected from parents right now, and we know where that $900 million is going to come from.
EM: Where?
BG: Well, you're going to see that in our manifesto. When we say, for example, that we're going to abolish user charges in public hospitals; Earl, you don't know the agony that people go through ... I could pull a file here and show you several cases of people who go to hospital, they need surgery and they are told that they will have to pay. Some of them I have, up to $200,000 for the surgery! And the Government's policy says if you can't pay, you are to still get the surgery, but if you can't pay, you get put at the bottom of the list! So, how much will it cost us to abolish user charges? One-point-six billion dollars. We know where that money is going to come from! So the commitments we make are commitments we have thought through. There are some things we would like to do but we cannot commit ourselves because we know that those funds are not going to be available.
EM: Where would you find the money to afford the police a quantum leap in their compensation?
BG: Where did the PNP government find the money? I think it was just prior to the 1997 election, when the police wages were increased by almost 100 per cent.
EM: But the fiscal situation is even tighter now, a decade later; isn't it?
BG: You know why it is so tight? Because the Government has maintained a macro-economic policy where every single day of the year Dr. Davies has to pay out $575 million to service debt! We are going to be outlining (in the manifesto) how we could introduce and implement an effective, dynamic, debt-management programme that will significantly reduce that $575 million a day that we are paying in order to respond effectively to some of these things.
To be continued
EM: What concerns you most about the tenure of Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, so far?
BG: The lack of direction. The fact that she has failed to define her prime ministership; because her prime ministership has to be about more than just dipping into the Housing Trust and dipping into the National Insurance Fund. People sort of knew where Mr. Patterson was headed. People clearly knew where Mr. Manley was headed, even though some of us were fearful of that direction. People knew where Mr. Seaga was going, even those who disagreed with his direction and his approach. Secondly, you continue to hear and to see signs that there is no cohesiveness in terms of the management of the country's affairs. You know, there was a rumour ... and I know the rumour (about Finance Minister Omar Davies resigning) has been denied, but it is an open secret that the comfort level that is required to make a government function (is absent).There are so many things that have to be done in government that involve collaboration among ministers and it has to be collaboration that is rooted in an acceptance and recognition of the fact that you are team players.
EM: Are you saying she is not up to the job?
BG: I can't make that judgement. She's only been there a few months. What I'm saying is that we are not seeing it and I believe that people are making judgements about it.
EM: Is she wrong-footing you? Is it that you find it so difficult to define what she is doing and the particular areas on which to attack her? Would you have found it easier to critique and criticise somebody else?
BG: No, I think it is early days yet. Everybody needs their apprenticeship period; some people need a longer apprenticeship than others. It doesn't mean that at the end of that apprenticeship, however extended it might be, that the apprentice would have learnt. I think people are waiting to see what difference she has made. Which comes back to the question of how has she defined her prime ministership that is peculiar to her?... And bear in mind that her government has not faced any major crisis yet. People wonder sometimes if we do face a crisis what would happen. If there was a crisis in terms of our economic programme that required tough decisions, are those decisions capable of being reconciled with the image that she has built up for herself? As Mr. Seaga reminded us, it takes cash to care!
EM: What are you going to do about Parliament - the physical facility - if you are elected?
BG: I don't believe the decision about Parliament can be a unilateral decision. I don't believe that either the PNP or the JLP, whichever is in government, ought really to make that decision. It really has to be a bi-partisan decision. I have indicated that I'm strongly opposed to relocating Parliament. That particular intersection of Duke Street and Beeston Street has been the seat of our Parliament since the 19th century. There was Headquarters House, which we have not done justice to because I think it should have become more than just a heritage site but should have become a place that we maintain as a living museum. We need to expand Parliament. What I propose is that we acquire the lands adjoining parliament - on the West and East and the North ... the lands bordered by Charles Street to the North; Mark Lane to the West, and John's Lane to the East, with Beeston Street, and develop a new Parliament complex straddling Duke Street. And I think it would be a good idea to have traffic passing through the parliamentary structure. I don't like the idea of isolating parliament and keeping it away from the people.
EM: Allied to that, what are you going to do to halt the slide in downtown Kingston in terms of the economy of the place; the social infrastructure etc.?
BG: Firstly, I think you need a comprehensive redesign of downtown. The business of doing a little thing here and a little thing over there can't work. You need to see the big picture: This is the downtown Kingston that we are seeking to recreate! Secondly, you have to put back some of the critical functioning institutions downtown. If you notice, Government has fled downtown! All the ministries now have to move to New Kingston and the appurtenances of New Kingston. We need to put it back down there, which is why I'm so opposed to Gordon House moving, because if you move parliament out of downtown Kingston, that would be the last of it. Thirdly, we want to tie in that redesign of downtown with the proposal that Mr. Seaga had put forward, which I am determined to implement, for that Freeport facility at Fort Augusta, tied in with the redevelopment of Port Royal for cruise shipping and so on. The whole of it has to be integrated. We would bring in all the professionals required to begin working on it as soon as we take office. Get that big picture; that vision created, because only then will you be able to market it and say to businesses that downtown is where the action is. Look at what has happened to Harlem in New York for example. My son lived in Harlem and told me that it got to a stage that he had to leave (despite the fact that he loved it there) because he could no longer live there because property values had quadrupled in the space of two years. (Bill) Clinton went down there and set up his office and so on. So, it is something that can be done and I want to move on it.
