If he is like many people, Prime Minister Bruce Golding has by now jotted down his list of resolutions for the new year, to which he has declared himself to be firmly committed.

And if he is like most politicians, which we have no reason to believe that he is not, those resolutions shan't last long into the new year. They will soon dissipate and Mr Golding will argue the exigencies of the times.

Whatever else is on the prime minister's list, there are several things, which, on behalf of the Jamaican people, we would urge him to pursue in 2009 with sustained commitment. For now, though, we highlight one, which has long bede-villed Jamaican governments: doing the little things and getting them right - consistently.

Public order

In this case, the mandate we press on Mr Golding and his administration is to spearhead a clean-up of Jamaican communities and keeping them that way to reverse what one of his recent predecessors, P. J. Patterson once referred to as "the uglification of Jamaica". As a corollary to this, the Government should choose a few areas in urban centres for the imposition and maintenance of public order.

This, of course, is not to suggest that the Government ought not to pay attention to the big issues facing the country at this time: the global recession and its effects on the national economy. Times will be difficult.

In the past, however, Jamaican administrations have become so focused on, and intimidated by the big economic issues, that attention to the other business of government was, at best, perfunctory. This, we feel, is to miss part of the plot in dealing with the more complex problems of mobilising individuals and their communities. And to do it relatively inexpensively.

We insist, as we have done often in these columns, that people who live in clean, decently organised communities are more likely to feel good about themselves and less likely to engage in the kind of antisocial behaviour that exacts so heavy a social and economic price on Jamaica. In other words, there is value is cleaning drains, trimming verges and mending potholes.

There is this unfortunate assumption in Jamaica that such things must carry exorbitant budgets, when, in reality, the bulk of the cost is minimum wage labour. The weakness, usually, is in the absence of community mobilisation; a failure to demand work for pay; and the siphoning of much of the resources by the community 'dons' to whom the Jamaican state has devolved much of its authority and who some in the Cabinet would legitimise in formal negotiations.

Agenda

Should Mr Golding summon the will to pursue this agenda, he might wish to go further by iden-tifying one or two areas of the capital where the state will impose order as a sort of preparation for a wider engagement.

The Government, in this regard, could start with the area around Half-Way Tree square, one of the busiest areas of the capital, which vendors and disorganised purveyors of public transportation meld into a cacophony of disorder. A concentration ought to be on the corner of Half-Way Tree and Suthermere roads, where buses disregard traffic lights, street lanes and civility in pursuance of private interests.

An unresponsive state heralds its death.

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