Dawn RitchLIKE SO many others, I marvel at my capacity to continue to be dumbfounded by the utterly bizarre events taking place right here in Jamaica.
A few years ago I was proud of the Jamaican press for sitting in the Gallery of Parliament and wearing muzzles to protest against proposed new legislation by the state on the freedom of information. Last week the sight of every seat occupied in the same Gallery by the Jamaican legal fraternity this time, gowned and bearing tiny placards protesting that citizens' rights are at risk, confidence is betrayed, and client-attorney privilege has been violated by the state ought to have been deeply alarming even to the most obtuse on-looker.
Since these are only the first 100 days of the fourth term of the now not only Honourable but Most Honourable P.J. Patterson, it seems to me he waxes greatly while the quality of life of the Jamaica people wanes even more.
That is not what surprises me, however, since failure rewarded with greater office always fails more spectacularly still. What astounds me is that the Prime Minister appears to have no remorse about it, and doesn't appear to be giving any thought to how he can improve life for everybody right here in Jamaica.
Instead Mr. Patterson has just announced, according to another newspaper, that one of the Government's strategies for the country's economic development and growth is to become the training of Jamaicans for export. "(We will undertake) heavy investment in training for a range of occupations in the services sector for both the local and the global marketplace." This of course, while defending his PNP Government's economic model, and doing so without the slightest sense of irony at all.
Patterson wants to renew social contract negotiations with trade unions and the private sector in order to keep wages and income increases below 7.3 per cent which was last year's inflation rate. His own salary increase this year, however, and that of other parliamentarians, was 103 per cent, and he sees no irony in that either.
The Prime Minister seems blissfully unaware that many workers and private sector employees haven't had a pay increase in the last several years, only the occasional empty promise due largely to his Government's policies. So I frankly don't see what there is to discuss, much less negotiate. With his usual sleight of hand he appoints another committee to review the matter and advise. Another committee will merely delay the onset of reality, however, which I suppose is always a kind consideration for the Most Honourable.
Jamaica has always had an overseas farm workers programme, and during Mrs. Portia Simpson Miller's time as Minister of Labour, she instituted the hotel workers programme. I find it hard to believe, however, that she could have intended this to become the economic model for development in Jamaica.
Jamaicans have always had seasonal employment abroad. It began when we were the primary labour force on the building of the Panama Canal. At a stretch one could even say that Jamaicans founded the country of Belize.
The Prime Minister's decision to
target tourism/food and information/ communication technology for investment in training for the local and global marketplace, and tout this as economic strategy, is nothing short of ludicrous. He did not say Jamaica would train overseas students in these areas. This training is intended for us, so that we can become as exportable a commodity as Jamaican teachers and nurses who are constantly recruited by overseas employers, and glad to go because of poor wages and conditions here.
There is no vision being offered therefore, by the Patterson administration to raise the standard of living, job market and remuneration here in Jamaica, which is where most of us have the misfortune to live.
Another announced strategy, the widening of the tax net and the dramatic increase in user fees for services rendered by the state, is likely to make what remains of Jamaica collapse even further. The poor, elderly and pensioners in our society can barely afford to buy food, much less pay sharply increased light bills. And the informal economy, which by definition is informal because it cannot be accurately measured, is to be relied upon to fill the Government's budget deficit. Dr. Omar Davies, Finance Minister, has become a magician in tails and top hat, pulling rabbits and revenues out of nowhere. This is illusion upon which the hopes and aspiration of an entire population cannot be based.
A recent editorial in Business Week, an American news magazine, headlined 'A Global White-Collar Migration', is worth noting in this regard. It states, "The Philippines has been exporting educated, English-speakers for decades, because it has not been able to build a working civil society with credible legal, financial, and political systems. Unless developing countries construct the institutional framework for stable growth, they may find themselves with the white-collar equivalent of maquiladoras, islands of cheap service work that do not transform their economies."
The export of people is one of the marks of a country or state in deepening crisis. Slaves were captured by black Africans, sold for profit and exported overseas. That we go willingly today is hardly a difference worth mentioning. In the modern world, failed or failing states also export people too. I have never before, however, heard of a premier making it a stated object of government policy.
The fact is that Dr. Davies' and Mr. Patterson's economic model has transformed Jamaica, but very badly indeed. Since they can't be bothered to fix it, the alternative is to export the problem, which are the tens of thousands of Jamaicans in need of jobs. When they go, who will develop Jamaica?
Patterson should expand training in Jamaica most certainly, and not only for ourselves but to bring in students from overseas. This will enable our institutions to become self-sustaining and profitable. These institutions should enjoy the best academic and technical reputations in the world, and its graduates the sought-after. But that is not what I hear him saying.
The sub-text in his new and so-called strategy of economic development is to increase Jamaica's remittances from abroad, already the primary source of foreign exchange for the island. No self-respecting country ought to regard that as economic development.
