Mark Wignall | Horne has left. Is that all?

Two Fridays ago, another fracture was applied to the frail and wobbly body of the People’s National Party (PNP). It was another tragic act in what is either deliberate farce or accidental comedy. In the PNP’s post-election chapter, it presents another uncertain fork in the road for a badly damaged opposition party.

Based on what came out, Norman Horne is either a senator or he is not. And there is the matter of a $10-million bill he wants settled, and it all comes out in the wash among people at street level as one thing connected to the other. When it was implied in the media that Horne may still be a US citizen and was ineligible to sit in Parliament, it placed the PNP in 2020 in the hall of infamy at the very time when it had been preparing itself to be adept at hanging around in that squalid hall.

I say that because in 2007, the PNP, badly stung by the JLP’s razor-thin win in 2007, dug up information that a number of JLP MPs were citizens of the US. It proved to be quite embarrassing to the ruling JLP even as those MPs later ran successful by-elections.

The PNP’s Anthony Hylton has called the problems facing the PNP and Horne ‘an own goal.’ The last time a football match was played between the PNP and the JLP was on September 3. At that time, the PNP was soundly drubbed by the JLP 49 goals to 14 for the PNP.

The PNP needs to stop playing against itself.

No matches have been played since that time, what with the JLP focused on handling the economy through these turbulent times and the Opposition PNP engaged in numerous bouts of factionalism, where many own goals are being shamefully slotted in.

Horne may be the nicest guy in the world, but given the additional pain he has caused the party, he needs to be booted from PNP membership and left standing on his own.

There are many people in Jamaica who recognise that we cannot take our democracy for granted. The most urgent recipe for that understanding is ensuring that any opposition party always has its viability intact.

At this time, the PNP is under pressure like never before, and the real scary part of that is that there are indications that it won't get better any time soon. Some have said that Mark Golding, the new PNP leader, has failed to be the uniter as he promised.

That to me is quite unrealistic. Golding has been leader for just a month. What did they expect? A miracle? The Norman Horne matter has dealt a near-tragic body blow to the PNP, and I still believe that Golding is the ideal man to get those factions together and stem the flow of the own goals. But it will not happen overnight.

In fact, I would invite the PNP to think of what was likely to have happened had there been anyone else than Golding at the top.

SILENT WAR IN GAMING MARKET

Two Fridays ago, while I was hosting a radio talk show, a man called, claiming that he was a gaming retailer and that he was under pressure not to sign up with new guys on the block in the gaming industry. It was, of course, difficult to determine if he was telling the truth. I asked him to leave a number so that I could, off the air, determine more details on what he had said. Strangely enough, I have not been able to link with him as the number rings without anyone answering.

Many months ago, prior to COVID-19, I had put forward the idea that adding other entrants to the gaming market was not, say, like placing new entrants into the telecoms sector, where benefits would be immediately felt by consumers.

More companies, more confusion, less taxes.

Let me explain. Gaming, or to give it its rightful name in Jamaica, gambling, is seen by Government as one of those industries, like the liquor market, that has ‘sin’ attached to it so it is taxed heavily.

Gaming, in that respect, is, in essence, a heavy tax-gathering industry that allows the Government to justify the ‘sin’ of gambling.

Unlike rum and beer and other alcoholic beverages, the heavy tax on gaming, where multiple operators are involved, tends to pit operators against each other to a point where new entrants piggyback on each other’s products and cannibalise each other to the extent that the market fails to grow.

The desired objective of growing the base eventually fails and tax revenue follows the same path.

Let’s look at a case study in Victoria, Australia. After six years of attempting to commercially structure a viable multilottery licencc model, that jurisdiction returned to a single market in 2014.

Prior to that, there was a low tax take, angry punters, and frustrated agents, as well as intertwined multiple lawsuits between government, regulator and both lottery companies.

In the 1990s in Barbados, multiple lotteries developed. Each operator introduced similar games and competition. Confusion and cannibalisation increased. Retailers became increasingly frustrated as they required three different terminals in their stores along with three different invoices on different terms to sell games from three different operators.

In 2005, the Government made the decision to streamline the lottery industry by consolidating the lotteries into one lottery platform. Prior to consolidation, that market had sales of US$36 million. Three years after consolidation, the market grew to US$44 million. In 2017, the lottery market increased to US$53 million.

Remember now, growth in the gaming market means more taxes to the Government. Which is, after all ,the main objective when a gaming licence is granted.

In COVID-19 times and beyond, the Government of Jamaica must bear these items in mind.

- Mark Wignall is a political and public-affairs analyst. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and mawigsr@gmail.com.