By Vernon Daley, Staff Reporter
Edward Seaga (left), Jamaica Labour Party leader, arrives yesterday at the National Arena, Kingston, for the closing session of the party's 58th annual conference. - Dennis Coke
Edward Seaga, the Jamaica Labour Party leader, yesterday promised to tear down inner-city slums throughout the island and re-shelter residents in a new stock of housing, as part of his party's long-term vision for the country.
Also, he told thousands of cheering supporters at the closing session of the party's 58th annual conference at the National Arena, Kingston, that a JLP government would recast the education system to include a focus on values and attitudes, as well as undertake a comprehensive study of the entire agricultural sector to determine its future prospects.
Elated by a massive turnout of flag-waving supporters who packed the arena, spilling out into the corridors, Mr. Seaga said the JLP was shifting its focus to more difficult problems that others do not wish to tackle.
"It is not a short-term matter to re-house all who dwell in the slum conditions in the inner cities. It will require time. But it must be done," Mr. Seaga said.
According to him, the ramshackle dwellings in these areas created a dark and degraded environment where crime, poverty and anti-social behaviour grow. He chided those who condemn inner-city residents without knowing the conditions that drive their behaviour.
Mr. Seaga, MP for West Kingston for the last 40 years, pointed out that the largest slums were located in Kingston, St. Andrew and Spanish Town - areas which also have the highest crime rate. He said the project would require heavy financing from multi-national agencies but argued that this would not be a problem because there was growing recognition that housing is a key factor in creating new, settled communities that are socially stable.
In the past there has been a heavy outlay of government expenditure to develop new housing for inner-city residents but many of these communities have slipped into disrepair, giving birth to new slums.
In his 90-minute presentation, Mr. Seaga said that under his new-look education plan, students from basic to high school would be taught life skills and moral values to counteract depraved social behaviour such as indiscipline and violence.
"This new look is so vital that it cannot be left to the ad hoc work of good-minded people and organisations with a social purpose to give voluntary support to retraining those who are anti-social," he said.
The announcement is similar to the National Values and Attitudes Campaign launched by Prime Minister P. J. Patterson in the early 1990s. But unlike Mr. Patterson's plan which sought to achieve its ends through voluntarism, the JLP's thrust would be captured in fixed subjects that are graded and the results included in school-leaving certificates.
Clad in his green party Tee-shirt, Mr. Seaga sipped beverage from a glass before turning to the agricultural sector. The JLP, he said, would set up a broad-based committee of locals and foreigners to undertake a comprehensive study of the sector to determine what is required to increase production, develop alternative crops that can replace uncompetitive ones, and find ways to put idle lands into production.
"It is the sector that sustains life among the poor. It is therefore the sector to which we must now give a new look to find a way to give it new life and new prospects for prosperity," he said.
He blasted the government for what he said was the delay in enacting the Safeguard Act to allow for the protection of local crops from international competition. He said the legislation, which was passed by the House of Representatives earlier this month, would provide a breathing space which must be used to review the entire agricultural sector.
