There was an important policy statement from the Government last week which has attracted surprisingly little attention, but has the endorsement of this newspaper.

Nonetheless, the policy does not go far enough, so we view the announcement by Information Minister Olivia Grange as merely the start. The next step must be to reverse the exodus of government ministries, departments and agencies from downtown Kingston, not only by stopping the trek uptown, but by ordering their return to the old section of the city.

Indeed, this flight from downtown is one of the travesties of Jamaica's recent history, under several political administrations. The movement gained momentum with the development of New Kingston in the 1960s and 1970s and was exacerbated in the absence of restraint during the administration of the immediate past.

It was bad enough during the early period when it was mostly private sector firms that moved; but worse is the scramble to get out by government ministries and departments. They claim that they have been forced to run because of a failure of security downtown. Staff, they say, do not want to work in that area of the city.

The argument, on a superficial level, makes sense; but it misses a more fundamental issue: how this exodus feeds the insecurity about which they complain and the economic costs associated with this movement uptown. We pay a price in underdevelopment.

As anyone associated with the formulation of social and economic policy - such as, for instance, the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) - should be able to attest, societal security rests not on the capacity of a constabulary or some similar agency of law enforcement. A living and lived environment generates its own security. A conglomeration of people, of themselves, provides a deterrent to criminals. Moreover, where there are people there is likely to be economic activity, which itself provides an incentive for the private sector and the state to invest in security.

The reverse is true. Which, of course, has been the bane of downtown. It has grown hard and gritty, largely abandoned by the state and accommodating mostly a transient crowd, who, themselves, have become callused in this abandonment. So, the PIOJ having paid upwards of $200 million to another government agency for a building uptown, is now spending another $100 million or so to refurbish it. The Export/Import Bank of Jamaica, too, recently found its way to New Kingston and so have a plethora of ministries and agencies which pay private sector companies hundreds of millions of dollars in rental annually.

In the meantime, what should be prime real estate, including the waterfront of one of the world's great natural harbours, goes to waste. Indeed, between buildings owned by the Urban Development Corporation and the Post Office, several hundreds of square feet in office space are idle downtown. And, even as the Government condoned the abandonment of this section of the city by its own institutions and agencies, it was, supposedly, offering tax incentives to private sector firms for redevelopment.

Hopefully, the Government is now serious about ending the charade and will lead by example with the renewal of downtown. Let the trek southwards begin.