Daniel Thwaites
IT PASSED with the very slightest mention. But Jamaica's debtor classification by the World Bank has been upgraded. We are now listed, not as a severely indebted middle income country, but as a moderately indebted middle income country. Another news item recently pointed out that Jamaica has become ineligible for certain types of developmental aid because the country is not poor enough.
Why is it that these facts are not vigorously debated? Because they contradict the official ideology (in days gone by it would be called propaganda) that the country is going to hell in a basket because of the economic conditions. Similarly, readers will recall that the poverty index showed last year that there was a decline in poverty overall across the island. This was a similar insult to the reigning rap, so it was swept under the carpet with an energetic efficiency rarely seen here.
Mind you, nobody wants to deny the reality that the country has serious problems. But if we gave up the dogma that it was pure money - or the lack of it that is our major problem, we would have to face up to some rather unpleasant truths about ourselves. I recall a most prescient article submitted to The Gleaner last year sometime by Ian Boyne in which he remarked that Jamaica's greatest problems did not stem from economic, but social and spiritual malaise.
Perhaps the matter is not directly related, but something must be said about the attempt to say of the people working around the National Heroes Circle that it is a 'crash programme'. What is interesting is that there is very little by way of analogous moral contempt when there are crash programmes for the rich. One sees where, for example, LoJ and NCB and SCJ are returning to the government for more money. Wherefore art thou denouncers of crash programmes?
All the same, the mere change of the designation from the World Bank amounts to nothing. But it points to other things. The management of our external debt has improved dramatically. And this in turn forces us to ask about the handling of the internal debt and the reduction of interest rates that was promised. A vigorous programme of divestment was promised in the budget exercise. Plans for the sale of the Jamaica Public Service have just recently been getting some attention. It must be done with all diligent speed. And certainly the Crowne Plaza Hotel should have been sold by now. The Americans had indicated that they wished to place their embassy there a fine idea.
The ambitious initiative by the Ministry of Finance to achieve a balanced budget this year ought to receive wholehearted support. We have to stop bleeding money away from our children. It really is that simple: in order to satisfy our spending habits, we have mortgaged the future of the country in a dangerous way, and while suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Minister Davies has guided us to within reach of a different future.
But then there is the issue of communicating the goal of fiscal rectitude to the people. Without that communication, success is unlikely. And yet there is little hope of this ever happening, as the government's communication capacity, in what is by any measure a non-friendly environment, is simply abysmal.
The JAS election
Norman Grant and the young blood crew did well, but didn't manage to take the leadership of the JAS from the incumbents, good men themselves. Certainly the vigorous campaign can only have helped the JAS, which if not dead, has been at least taking a long doze for the last few decades. It looks as if better things are in store: Grant and his team will certainly return and the title cannot long be held from this ambitious, talented, articulate young farmer.
Though he has not won this time, by his candidacy Grant has sown an acorn that will certainly grow into a solid oak. Farmers are accustomed to being patient.
Daniel Thwaites is involved in teaching and writing.
