Delroy ChuckDURING THE past weekend, members of the Government and private sector spent three days at the Ritz Carlton, Montego Bay, discussing, planning and seeking ways and means to create jobs and economic growth. So far, nothing concrete or new has emerged from the retreat to inspire hope and confidence of an economic turnaround or a boom in job creation. The people must be worried, really worried, when the government, the private sector and others seem totally lost and incapable of creating an economic environment to produce the needed jobs and opportunities.
Interestingly, out of the much publicised retreat, the Government is not promising another 40,000 jobs, which it promised on at least two previous occasions or six per cent annual growth, which it promised as a part of the National Industrial Plan in 1996 nor, in fact, repeating its annual budgetary promises of two to three per cent growth, which formed part of Minister Davies' lexicon for the past ten years, none of which has materialised.
Hopefully, the Government now recognises that the people are simply tired of its repetitive promises, of projects being in the pipeline, and of an economic take-off about to happen but never does. Where is the solid achievements and progress that the Government, less than five months ago, successfully conned the people to log on to? Was the retreat an attempt to get the private sector to log on to new taxes, old policies and more promises? It would be laughable if it were not so tragic, so asinine and so ultimately futile.
To be sure, jobs and economic growth are desperately needed but they will not come if the same plans, policies and prescriptions that closed factories, downsized businesses and suffocated the economy for the past ten years are repeated and continued. Simply examine and reflect on how many foreign firms, manufacturing plants and much needed employment disappeared from the economic landscape during the past ten years. Toothpaste, soap, razor blade and many other basic consumer items that are used daily were hitherto produced here but are now imported, which means that those jobs have been exported. What are the new policies to ensure that these ordinary consumer items can once again be produced here?
If we want to move forward, the government and the private sector must get real and ask if Jamaica is unable to produce simple consumer durables even for local consumption then what can we produce to compete with the rest of the world? In the global economy, there is only one sure and sustainable way to create jobs and economic growth and that is to create an economic environment to produce goods and services that can compete locally and globally. When nothing produced locally can compete with imports, which is now the case, something is fundamentally wrong at the macro-economic level and not with individual factories, farms or manufacturing plants.
When we import, we are providing jobs and opportunities for the workers who produce those goods and services, when our workers could probably do the same. When Goodyear closes its factory in St. Thomas and imports tyres, we are providing work elsewhere to produce the hundreds of thousands of tyres our vehicles use daily. In truth, we do not have enough jobs here because we have exported them to countries that can produce the goods and services cheaper and better than us.
Surely, it is time for us to learn and understand that the lack of jobs and economic growth is a direct consequence of a stunted and frustrating economic environment that makes it cheaper and better to import, when the ultimate test of good governance is to provide an economic environment to produce some, even a couple, goods and services that we can produce more cheaply and better than our competitors. Put another way, if we are to provide jobs and economic expansion, we have to stop seeing our salvation as coming from loans, grants and remittances and start to work our way out of the stifling economic mess.
Sadly, I do not believe we can rely on the present movers and shakers of the private sector, many of whom are forever seeking protection, preferences and favours, and are merely profilers and paper investors, to bring economic salvation. We have to start looking for a new breed of risk-taking entrepreneurs, local and foreign, who are innovative, forward looking and big thinkers to extricate us from our economic stagnation.
Admittedly, at this time, I do not have the answers but one thing is clear we are not on the right course. In the meantime, as I walk through the rundown and decaying areas of our country and meet the ordinary people who are unable to afford even to feed and care themselves, I know the desperate need for a job, any decent job, to sustain their lives and boost their self respect. Our young people, many have not worked since they left school, are eagerly searching to find employment and gain the respect and stability that come from having a job. If our government and private sector ever know the deep pain, severe hardship and increasing desperation in our communities, instead of spending time in a holiday resort they would be in the boardrooms of foreign investors seeking investment.
If the weekend retreat fails to provide the path to jobs and economic growth soon, then, surely, it would be time for a new set of leaders who can implement new policies and create the environment to provide the jobs and opportunities our people so desperately need.
Delroy Chuck is an attorney-at-law and Opposition Member of Parliament. He can be contacted by e-mail at delchuck@hotmail.com
