Dear Editor,
Recently, Finance Minister Peter Phillips made a very profound statement. He said that when Jamaica wanted new loans from foreign lending agencies some of them were of the view that more loans would have been a waste. As far as they could see, it would have been better if the Jamaican economy were allowed to crash and then they help us with starting over.
How did we manage to reach the state where major foreign lenders can think that a Jamaican economic collapse would be a good thing for us? I think these external lenders are right. For many years, we have witnessed a dramatic fall in productivity.
There have been several reasons for this. Perhaps the main one is our well-established culture of nonaccountability at all levels. We have politicians who betray the public’s trust and aren’t sanctioned in any real way.
We have public servants who don’t do their work and are ignored. If we were seriously holding these people to account, we would have had a Government and a public service that were actually working. Were we to start over, we would have to ensure that a very strong culture of accountability is established. I especially like the idea of giving the electorate the power to recall non-performing politicians.
That would indeed help.
We have seen how career politicians aren’t always the best for us. What these external financiers said with regad to their pessimism about Jamaica is enough confirmation that our current system of government isn’t working. I have always said that we have very confused national priorities.
If we are to start over, we have to put entertainment where it belongs — on the back burner. Our national priorities should not be entertaining tourists; producing athletes, musicians, poets, pastors, talk-show hosts, and other entertainment activities.
Sure, these have a role to play, but our top priorities should be to produce the scientists, managers, and other skilled technicians who we need to create an economy that the world will notice and a country that will take its rightful place on the world stage.
If we were to start over, we must think like the Singaporeans, who believe that shipbuilding and other heavy industries are more important that athletes. And we must be like the South Koreans who, just a few decades ago, pulled themselves out of poverty on the backs of education, science, technology, and accountability and not on music, sports and lively church sermons.
It is good that China will be building that logistics hub. However, if we had a culture of accountability, science and any sense of greatness we would have done this ourselves a long time ago.
I remember a scene from the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, when the professor was telling the alien that was sent to exterminate all human life that the only way any intelligent species can change is if it is on the brink. If these external financiers had allowed us to reach that brink maybe we would have changed.
An economic collapse of the type that was being prescribed by some of these financiers would have been a total disaster for us. But, after that, we may have had a chance to start over from fresh.
Michael A Dingwall
michael_a_dingwall@ hotmail.com
Recently, Finance Minister Peter Phillips made a very profound statement. He said that when Jamaica wanted new loans from foreign lending agencies some of them were of the view that more loans would have been a waste. As far as they could see, it would have been better if the Jamaican economy were allowed to crash and then they help us with starting over.
How did we manage to reach the state where major foreign lenders can think that a Jamaican economic collapse would be a good thing for us? I think these external lenders are right. For many years, we have witnessed a dramatic fall in productivity.
There have been several reasons for this. Perhaps the main one is our well-established culture of nonaccountability at all levels. We have politicians who betray the public’s trust and aren’t sanctioned in any real way.
We have public servants who don’t do their work and are ignored. If we were seriously holding these people to account, we would have had a Government and a public service that were actually working. Were we to start over, we would have to ensure that a very strong culture of accountability is established. I especially like the idea of giving the electorate the power to recall non-performing politicians.
That would indeed help.
We have seen how career politicians aren’t always the best for us. What these external financiers said with regad to their pessimism about Jamaica is enough confirmation that our current system of government isn’t working. I have always said that we have very confused national priorities.
If we are to start over, we have to put entertainment where it belongs — on the back burner. Our national priorities should not be entertaining tourists; producing athletes, musicians, poets, pastors, talk-show hosts, and other entertainment activities.
Sure, these have a role to play, but our top priorities should be to produce the scientists, managers, and other skilled technicians who we need to create an economy that the world will notice and a country that will take its rightful place on the world stage.
If we were to start over, we must think like the Singaporeans, who believe that shipbuilding and other heavy industries are more important that athletes. And we must be like the South Koreans who, just a few decades ago, pulled themselves out of poverty on the backs of education, science, technology, and accountability and not on music, sports and lively church sermons.
It is good that China will be building that logistics hub. However, if we had a culture of accountability, science and any sense of greatness we would have done this ourselves a long time ago.
I remember a scene from the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still, when the professor was telling the alien that was sent to exterminate all human life that the only way any intelligent species can change is if it is on the brink. If these external financiers had allowed us to reach that brink maybe we would have changed.
An economic collapse of the type that was being prescribed by some of these financiers would have been a total disaster for us. But, after that, we may have had a chance to start over from fresh.
Michael A Dingwall
michael_a_dingwall@ hotmail.com