The Editor, Sir:

The stewardship of our new Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller has come up for serious debate in recent times.

Mrs. Simpson Miller has stoutly defended her efforts at governance, passionately explaining away one mishap after another.

This kind of governance that seeks to produce an excuse for every failure of public leadership has dogged the People's National Party (PNP) for the past 17 years.

So that after her less than admirable performance during the 2006 Budget Debate, the Prime Minister stated that she was being "heckled."

When Minister Phillip Paulwell fumbled Netserv, then Prime Minister P.J. Patterson's justification was "youthful exuberance."

After the collapse of the construction industry as a result of the cement shortage earlier this year, Mrs. Simpson Miller stated that she could not have intervened at an earlier date because it would have undermined the authority of the Minister of Industry.

The ironic thing about this trend though is the fact that after all of this the most recent Don Anderson poll shows that the PNP and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) are in a dead-heat race running up to the next general elections.

Seemingly, we are developing a worrying tolerance for mediocrity in this country that has permeated every facet of our society. It is very disheartening also to see that this trend is being perpetrated by central Government.

The JLP needs to recognise that it has the collective futures of 2.5 million people resting on its shoulders. It needs to get its act together and put itself in a position to rescue the future of Jamaica. Five more years of this kind of governance will be the straw that broke the camel's back. We just cannot afford it.

I am, etc.,

Nicordia Vickers

nickababes@yahoo.com