NEVER BEFORE have speech writers been so excoriated. I refer, of course, to the ones on the maiden speech of Madame Prime Minister in Parliament.
To blame them is brutal, baseless and grossly unfair. Even if they were working on it all through the night, Mrs. Simpson Miller's so-called shortcomings can only be her own. To bring in the writers is merely to set up a straw man. No matter how brilliant they are or compassionate, it was her speech and hers alone. So her speech writers are of little consequence. They can only write what she tells them to.
While she was on her feet in the House of Parliament, binders kept arriving and being passed to her. During her delivery, paragraphs were repeated and the pagination, to any observer who has ever written a speech for somebody else, must have been wrong. But if the speech writers were hurried, it could only have been Mrs. Simpson Miller who was rushing them along.
NIS INVESTMENTS
At one point in a rustle of papers she said, "You know what ... you know what ...?" and began to speak extemporaneously on how she built up and expanded the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) by investing some of it in equity in Jamaican blue chip companies, commercial property and tourism resorts. All this in her first Cabinet position as Minister of Labour. A digression, but an important one.
Her first objective as Prime Minister she announced, was that Jamaica should have 100 per cent literacy.
I was amused to see this later described as a 'mundane' goal, when it is the cause of the peace and prosperity of Barbados, where it is over 90 per cent. If this is banal, then I welcome the lack of imagination. Should the coming
generation of Jamaicans achieve 100 per cent literacy, there will be no end to our peace and prosperity.
Mrs. Simpson Miller also said she was going to use money from the National Housing Trust to take care of the indigent. For some long time now I have been wondering what funds Patterson's successor would have to do anything in an island drowning in debt. She said that she intends to use NIS money and NHT money for her signature programme of community involvement and development.
This column is already on record that it takes a dim view of taking
$1 billion out of NIS to fund small business development, which Patterson announced. Or $5 billion from it for educational transformation without reform at the Ministry of Education. And I was not in favour of Emancipation Park being built from NHT money, and about which, Her Majesty's loyal Opposition said nothing, except to agree.
Madame Prime Minister does not dispute that this is all poor people's money. But she insists on a moral point, if not a legal one, that its growth must be used to benefit the poor, and the poorest of the poor as well.
No doubt, therefore, legislation will shortly be tabled to facilitate this.
Two weeks ago I decided I wanted to apply for an NHT home improvement loan of $1 million. I sent for an application form. They sent back a black and white brochure entitled 'National Housing Trust Documents Required: Original Documents must be submitted where specified'. The brochure then went on to list 15 different documents that it required before I could even get a loan application form. No wonder they hardly give any home improvement loans with regulations like this.
Next, I'm going to try NHT mortgages on the open market and see what turns up. But I'm not hopeful. The NHT itself is clearly in need of reformation, otherwise, the only thing it will ever be able to invest in are national parks and tourism resorts.
And that can scarcely have been the intention. The application process for its core functions must be simplified. So Mrs. Simpson Miller has her work cut out for her in more ways than one.
According to the International Monetary Fund, I should put my faith in cooperative credit unions for fiduciary responsibility and efficiency. The IMF must be
getting socialist in its old age, but better a credit union, I suppose, than nothing at all.
SOLE REPOSITORY
Mrs. Simpson Miller also announced that the Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS) had created a $600 million fund for on-lending to small business. If they have regulations like the NHT, they'll still remain exclusively the bankers of big business and government in the country, and therefore, effectively sole repository of the nation's deposits, routinely the highest profit maker in Jamaica. Most of it repatriated to Canada. All things considered, the sum is paltry. BNS ought to be ashamed of themselves.
These and other initiatives, however, are plainly aimed at ameliorating the worst ravages of Dr. Omar Davies' policies over the last 12 years, among the most vulnerable. But if any of Mrs. Simpson Miller's initiatives are to have any effect at all, the many public and private lending institutions involved in the programme must not make it impossible for the applicants to qualify.
Raising the NHT home loan to $3 million is meaningless if the regulations make it insuperably difficult or impossible to apply. Common sense must be returned to the application process.
Soon after she began her speech, Mrs. Simpson Miller was loudly heckled by the Leader of the Opposition and other Opposition members in the House. She stood back from the lectern, even though she'd plainly said a lot to provoke them on the subject of who was where and what happened. They took the bait, fell for the trap, and broke into a sustained uproar.
Dr. Peter Phillips, Leader of Government Business in the House, moved to defend her, but Mrs. Simpson Miller put her hand on his shoulder to prevent him
getting to his feet. When her side grew as raucous as the Opposition benches, she held up her hand
for them to desist. She was in command.
She is in as command today as Patterson was then, but I hope she makes a better fist of it. At present she has an immense cement crisis on her hands that reaches into the farthest corners of the island, a consequence of decisions made by her predecessor.
Because surely no one can think that Phillip Paulwell made them. In our system of government the Prime Minister is the only one in charge, regardless of how much the People's National Party treasures the concept of 'collective responsibility'. That just keeps them quiet, but not in charge.
NO COLLECTIVE RESPONSIBILITY
There was no 'collective responsibility' either, about the sale of Jamaica Public Service Company to Mirant, and against which operations there is overwhelming public complaint. P.J. was in power. And he willingly presided over the fall-out of his Finance Minister's economic policies.
Today Portia is in charge. She at least will not duck the responsibility.
FOOTNOTE: I made an error last week in my column 'Looking for Scapegoats'. It is not the government-owned Planning Institute of Jamaica which is ensconced in the former Crown Eagle's corporate building, but the government-owned Financial Services Commission the rump of FINSAC. This adds insult therefore, to injury, and must surely be the unkindest cut of all.
