The Editor, Sir:

Don Robotham in his piece on "The PNP at 70" has provided us with three avenues for the People's National Party (PNP) to adopt one as the way forward.

Let me say that this is not a choice which has the 'N' in its initials. The PNP has become a small-minded set of self-seeking individuals who have probably never read The Plan For Progress and seen how the party embraced all Jamaica in its thrust to development.

So, in essence, the PNP has to get back to embracing the Jamaican people as the reason for the party's creation and the reason for its existence.

In this connection, it has to chose that plank of Don Robotham's scenario where the people come first and the country has to be geared toward the development of the people. For example, it has to focus on domestic agriculture as the organ for social, economic and motivation purposes. When the PNP rekindles in Jamaicans the feeling of belonging, of ownership of what is important and of the national will to forge ahead to solve our problems with our efforts, then it will return to being a motivational force in Jamaica. We have tried the macroeconomic solutions imposed on us and what has been the outcome?

Policy regime

We have passed through price and income policy regimes, stabilisation policy regime and exchange control liberalisation.

We have passed the World Trade Organisation and globilisation as externally imposed solutions. Look at Jamaica and see if there really is any upward change since the 1960s.

We have tried all sorts of schemes and taken all sorts of potions devised by the bureaucracy of international organisations. It is time we tried the prescription that made the PNP a nationalist organisation and not merely a political party in its heyday. The PNP must put back the 'N' in its party name and lead a nation to a prescribed objective.

I am, etc,

MIDDLETON WILSON

wilsonmiddleton@aol.com