Wilberne Persaud, Financial Gleaner Columnist
We've made it to the seventh year of the 21st century and 45th year of independence from colonial rule in the interest of empire and British motherland.
We've achieved this without economic development that nationalists like Norman Manley envisaged should have come our way. Manley defined the mission of the generation to succeed his - economic independence built on political independence his generation achieved.
Three of every five living Jamaicans never experienced colonial rule! No one under 45 years of age, as a child, lined the streets on Empire Day in the sweltering sun, with but a cup of brown sugar lemonade and perhaps a biscuit or bun to see the Queen pass, and sing, irony of ironies: "Britons, Britons never, never shall be slaves."
Fathers of the younger set, those under15, never had to sit by and watch unqualified, often incompetent Englishmen take civil service and other positions they could only dream of filling.
outdoor relief
Eric Williams points out in his biography Inward Hunger: The Education of a Prime Minister, that an important aspect of the British imperial regime was provision of a "vast system of outdoor relief for the British middle classes." Jobs for the boys in the colonies.
Yet, even with corruption and nepotism the colonial government's mission was more or less unwaveringly achieved. Why? Its focus was simple, straightforward and without formidable challenge or opposition.
"The crown colony legislature fostered and promoted British interests at the expense of Trinidadian. It did this either positively, as in vigorous support of the sugar and oil industries, or negatively, as in its subordination of the cocoa industry or its passive indifference or active hostility to the small farmer."
That was Williams again. We could easily substitute Jamaica for Trinidad and similar quotes may be found from Beckford, Fanon, Garvey, or so many others.
So what is different in independent 21st century Jamaica? We no longer have a crown colony legislature with non-elected representatives and a Governor whose power locally, exceeded that of United States or French presidents, or British prime ministers. What is different is the fact that we do not have a monolithic interest that can be so easily identified.
We have diverse interests and representative government now. The voting population has to be pleased, wooed, and not simply controlled. Whereas British sugar interests were our indisputable governors then, today can we say that bauxite, or tourism, or any other interest for that matter, dominates governance?
Is it, dare I say, party interest? Is the diversity of interests that exist among small farmers, bauxite, tourism, commerce, the building trades and all others simply subordinated to the interest of the party in the quest for political power? If this is so, is it inimical to good governance and economic development for the 21st century? If it is, does it have to be?
legalised corruption
A friend defines Washington as the place where governance is achieved by a process of legalised corruption. He was describing the practice of lobbying.
So how can we solve this problem of development for the 21st century? Does governance have so much to do with it? What are some specific elements of the problem? Here are a few important ones:
Low growth despite consistently high levels of investment and public debt.
High crime rates.
High interest rates.
Insufficient accountability among both public and private sector leadership.
Environmental degradation associated with bad policy decisions.
I chose these for their apparent separateness. High levels of investment usually provide higher levels of growth. If not, there are intervening variables to blame. If construction firms, down and uptown businesses, must pay protection money their levels of investment are exaggerated in the statistics. They don't have an accounting line item that reads: Protection money.
And this problem seems all encompassing. On engaging a taxi from New Kingston to College Common, the driver said to me: "Mona right? I know."
As the conversation developed he said he knew me from UWI campus. He no longer plied his trade there because "protection money too much."
It was $500 weekly until another 'don' came on the scene demanding another $500. Even the lone taxi-driver plying the route August Town, Papine, Liguanea is not spared. That was 2001 dollars; today it must be $1,000.
If this is a form of taxation the expenditure side has nothing to do with productivity enhancement.
If our politics allow or generate protection rackets and garrison constituencies guarantee electoral victory so that the party does not therefore have to 'please voters' through the effect of good governance, then the influence of electoral outcomes on good governance is negated.
It is in this sense that the five apparently separate problems listed above reveal themselves as interconnected.
So if the foregoing discussion seems out of place in the Financial Gleaner, I do beg to differ. Finance houses, the business sector, civil society all need to act on these truths, if indeed they are.
wilbe65@yahoo.com.
A friend defines Washington as
the place where governance is achieved by a process of legalised corruption. He was describing
the practice of lobbying.
TAKEN FROM THE FINANCIAL GLEANER, FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 2007
