We have no impulse to gloat and feel no compulsion to say: 'We told you so'. Nonetheless, there is gratification in the acknowledgement by the Health Minister, Mr. Horace Dalley, that the country faces a grave and present danger, which would have been easily avoidable if the administration had been paying attention all along.

Mr. Dalley's reference, of course, was to the recent outbreak of malaria in Jamaica, 40 years after the island was declared free of the disease. But despite the minister's undignified contortions and clumsy deflections, he arrived at a conclusion of which we, and others, have been warning for a long time: Jamaica's failure to manage the physical environment properly may have helped in fostering this outbreak of malaria. And even if it wasn't so in this case, it was only a matter of time before it happened anyway.

Not that we expect Mr. Dalley to have seen the connection between his statement this week when he attempted to paint Haitians and Hondurans as the bad guys, and the point we have argued for so long.

Indeed, it is the bane of this administration that in its 18 years in office, it has failed to get the little things right, especially keeping our towns and cities clean. And it is not that it has not recognised its failures. The former Prime Minister once lamented the 'uglification' of Jamaica and inspired the launch of a 'nice and clean' campaign, which, unfortunately, was unsustained. So, the grand plans to clean drains and gullies, trim verges, bush empty lots and demolish derelict structures all fell away.

Our urban communities are, to a large extent, in a state of advanced decay and public spaces gritty and unkempt. Part of the problem, of course, is a politics and governance that presumes everything to be outrageously expensive when the real cost is the overlay of pork. What really ought to be properly supervised minimum wage jobs become ridiculously expensive contracts that are very likely to be subject to cost overruns.

So the drains are not cleaned and lots become overgrown and provide great breeding grounds for vectors - like the mosquitoes that carry malaria. Hopefully, Mr. Dalley sees the relationship between old-style public health interventions, the prevention of communicable diseases and the life expectancy of Jamaicans, of which we like to boast.

But there are other social values to keeping the environment clean, as we have argued before. People who live in a clean space, even in difficult economic circumstance, will feel better about themselves and their communities and are less likely to engage in antisocial behaviour. This has implications for crime and violence, about which we are all so concerned.

We feel that the Government having now recognised the problem has momentum on its side to really do something about it; it is a project that Prime Minister Simpson Miller should assume as her job and take full leadership. The process had started, in some areas, for Cricket World Cup. It should be continued.

Indeed, Mrs. Simpson Miller has another ready-made platform from which to carry on: This year marks the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, which is of importance, and should mean something to the vast majority of Jamaicans. These descendants of slaves deserve to inhabit a clean environment as one point of respect.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.