The Editor, Sir:

Mr. Stephen Smith, the pie in the sky dream of free education that Mr. Golding is leading a seemingly educated person such as you to believe is appalling.

Your letter failed to quantify the cost of this free education in the same fashion the Leader of the Opposition did. The Budget is already overburdened with revolving debt and your great saviour, Mr. Golding, would be adding to the mess that we are now in. All governments in the past have failed miserably to provide some of the basic infrastructure and resources for schools and you want us the citizens to sit back and watch the Government educate our youths?

In your letter you blast the PNP and JLP partisan politics, but in the same tone you are telling the country that Bruce Golding will be able to make good on his pie in the sky. I ask you, how can he possibly do any of this with the same JLP around him? Also, did you forget that he was a big part of the JLP in the past, so how on earth is he any different?

You may recall that he was one of the original members of the infamous gang of five, according to Mr. Seaga. Mr. Golding is the same old tired politician of yesteryear that the people of Jamaica do not need, more so because he has lit his candle, sung his sankey and found his way back home.

Clean slate

With that said we should rest this idea of free education once and for all, and look to more meaningful ways of lifting our beloved nation out of the rut that it is currently in. Therefore, all the pie in the sky ideas should get thrown through the door and that should leave us with a clean slate to start with, because all we have been given are dreams that, turn into nightmares.

So only collectively, with everyman and woman of the island playing their part and not waiting for the government to do it, will we solve the issues facing Jamaica and not until then will we attain real progress.

I am., etc,

XAVIER D. ALLEN

xallen@verizon.net

Duckenfield, Golden Grove P.O.

St. Thomas, Via Go-Jamaica