THE EDITOR, Sir:

I'D LIKE to comment on a letter to your paper by Mr. Kirk Barrow regarding Air Jamaica's continued existence despite its insolvency.

Dear Mr. Barrow:

As you've quite correctly asserted, for various reasons, Air Jamaica will never be a profitable operation. If it could even just break even, it would be bad, but not so bad. Unfortunately, it will always be the big white elephant that flies.

The argument is made that it brings the tourists to Jamaica, and that its contribution to GDP outweighs the deficit it creates. While I do not have access to all the numbers, I think it is safe to say that this argument is anecdotally nonsense! If Air Jamaica was allowed to go bankrupt and belly-up (because nobody is going to be stupid enough to buy it and assume its billions of United States dollars worth of debt), and if the routes it owns were leased out to other carriers, all the other airlines would be only too happy to pick up the slack from Air J's departure (pun intended), and life and tourism would go merrily along as if Air J never even existed.

Then why in God's precious name is the government of Jamaica continuing to feed this white elephant with wings? One reason and one reason only; And it has nothing to do with economics. The reason? National pride ... and not a damn thing else! Having our own airline is a great symbol of our nation's (so-called) independence. It is a show to other nations that 'we have arrived', which wouldbe a wonderful thing ... if the airline could at least break even! But alas, this is not the case; And our government would rather saddle poor, hardworking, Jamaican taxpayers with more debt than to lose this symbol of national pride.

But you know what? This bespeaks of a much deeper flaw in our national psyche. As Jamaicans, we have a tendency to "put our basket where we can't reach it", so that we can give a nice show of prosperity to our friends and neighbours, never mind that we don't even know where the rent money is going to come from.

A number of years ago, a friend of my family remarked to me, "Peter, anybody who you see in Jamaica who looks as if they 'have it', mark my word, it's overdraft they're living on". Unfortunately, this very same mentality has found its way even into our Government, to the point where 70 cents of every dollar collected by Inland Revenue goes just to debt servicing.

Oh, what a mess we've made of our (so-called) independence.

I am, etc.,

PETER HOPKINS

pdhopkins@sympatico.ca

Toronto, Canada

Via Go-Jamaica