The Editor, Sir:

The Hon. Prime Minister may be deemed to have outdone the Opposition Leader in making promises and curiously has ridiculed the Opposition's promise of no school fees, even though former PM Patterson made and failed to keep that promise. Her major promise is the removal of health fees for under-18s. Is this promise keepable? Does it mean what it says?

Health fees could be interpreted to mean the bill one receives on being discharged from hospital. It could also mean the registration fee. I am pretty sure it is the latter, given that the amount involved is $350 million But which is it really? Can parents expect that come May 29, if their 12-year-old gets admitted to hospital for a week and while there has surgery, uses the X-ray services, the lab, gets expensive antibiotics - that all those will be free? I suspect not, and the PM or her spokesperson needs to clarify this. I suspect, though, that even if all services will be for free (whichis hardly likely) it will be short-lived.

Here is my reason for doubt. P.J. promised in the run-up to the 2002 General Election, the phased removal of school fees, . That was never kept, and I suspect one of the safety valves in that promise was PHASED. By being phased the delivery must come after the election. And when there is no election near there is nothing to fear.

But here is an even more questionable one, the PM promised to bring public sector wages to 80 per cent of market rates, also on a phased basis, prior to the 2002 election. Public sector workers got the first tranche in September 2002. Shortly after the election the Minister of Finance announced that the budget deficit was going in the wrong direction and one of the corrective measures was to withdraw the promise.

Thereafter a wage freeze was introduced via an an MoU in the midst of which parliamentarians took/got a 103 per cent salary increase.

Time alone will tell whether the removal of hospital fees for U-18s is all that it offers to be!

I am, etc.,

CANUTE S. THOMPSON

canute_thompson@hotmail.com

P.O. Box 1270

Mandeville

Via Go-Jamaica