Edward Seaga The JLP 2002 manifesto was quite different. It was a blueprint with specifics, costing and identification of the funds for every one of the 10 major programmes it offered. It sold over 2,000 copies after free distribution of another 1,500.
The present period of government will expire in October, a mere five months away, assuming that the general election is not called before. But my belief is that it won't. October seems to be the date. That means that soon the parties will be publishing their manifestos which, in most cases, is nothing more than a wish list of a little of this and a little of that.
The JLP 2002 manifesto was quite different. It was a blueprint with specifics, costing and identification of the funds for every one of the 10 major programmes it offered. It sold over 2,000 copies after free distribution of another 1,500.
Condemned parties
Parties are condemned as having no vision or no mission if they do not table a manifesto. But once it is tabled very few people read it. Worse yet, very few parties when they become governments diligently pursue the programmes in their manifestos. The really major policies or programmes are not included in manifestos because the pre-release would kill the surprise value of launching a truly major new programme at the right time.
The same is true of plans. A government cannot govern without a plan, it is said. But of the 10 plans prepared and published, the first being by the World Bank in 1952, only one was fully implemented, the 1963-68 five-year Independence Plan. All the others were aborted because new governments were elected mid-stream in the plan period and, quite naturally, wanted their own plan with their own policy prescriptions.
Hence, Norman Manley aborted the World Bank 1952-62 plan in order to present his government's 1957-67 plan. I aborted that plan because I had the Independence Plan, 1963-68, prepared with policies appropriate to a newly independent country. That Plan was not aborted because the government was still in power in 1968 when it expired.
Manley's 5 year plan
Michael Manley had no plan at all until 1978 when the Five-Year Plan was presented six years after his government was in power, when his Democratic Socialism plan was prepared. I did not present a plan in the 1980s until 1988 because of the need to steer the country through a mid-term international depression, the worst in 50 years, which would have destroyed any plan, anyway.
After overcoming that period and restoring the economy to a path of growth, it was time to prepare the Social Well-Being Plan and the Going for Growth Plan for the economy. These were tabled in 1988. But they never saw the light of day all the financing was identified, because the government changed in 1989.
Planning is not a viable effort, therefore, and manifestos are even less viable.
But countries, of course, cannot travel in the dark. Hence, the route taken by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a sensible one - prepare three-year macroeconomic projections, but only focus on year one. The following year, the second year, will become year one, year three will be year two, and a new year three will be prepared. It is called a rolling plan. This is the type of planning that now guides the economy.
This leaves a gap because some sectoral plans are needed. We have had a tourism plan, which was placed on a shel it was one of the better ones. A National Energy Plan was also prepared. Both were essential. But where is the most important plan of all, an agricultural plan? With the major crops, sugar and bananas phasing down or phasing out, what is to take the place of these two historical giants to keep the sector alive and to find replacements for lost jobs?
Put idle hands to work
I have said it so often that I am thinking of setting the words to music: put idle hands to work on idle lands, using the modern scientific approach introduced by Agro 21 in the 1980s, not the Operation Grow type of crash programme development of the1970s. It is our only hope.
At least one major plan already done, needs to be recast. The Education Transformation Plan was never a viable effort. It was bloated out of all proportions, over $500 billion in cost, making it unfinanceable. The effort should have given almost exclusive focus to early childhood education, as I said when it was launched, and all available financing invested in that area to get the foundation right.
Investing further in the superstructure, beyond the essential needs, will show little results. The outcome will still be that some 75 per cent of all enrolled students, who are at the appropriate age to take the CSEP (CXC) exam leave school, for any of many reasons, without a single pass. The target must be reversed: 75 per cent passes, 25 per cent failure.
Setting too many major targets will only diffuse the effort and resources. Results are needed on a meaningful scale. Many small increments of movement will not have any impact. This calls for privatisation of focus to make substantial gains over limited but vital areas.
In the meantime, both parties need to go easy on the 'freeness'. As long as the debt service ratio is stuck in a gear that makes Jamaica one of the world's worst debtor nations, the economy is not in a position to be overgenerous.
Edward Seaga is a former Prime Minister. He is now a Distinguished Fellow at the UWI. Email: odf@uwimona.edu.jm
