The following is feedback from Gleaner Online readers to yesterday's editorial headlined, 'Mr Hylton's hotline'. Add your voice to the conversation by emailing us at letter@gleanerjm.com

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Work already done

That has already been done by the competitiveness committee and paid for by the European Union under the Public Sector Development Project. It is clear Mr Hylton has not yet been properly briefed by his Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce staff, including the agencies of JAMPRO and the Jamaica Business Development Corporation.

Your predecessors felt that if we target and manipulate benchmark indicators used by the Doing Business report, we could get a more favourable rating, but what is sad is that the Doing Business report is not an exam - it should be a way of life.

Singapore has 243 ministers of government and all are focused on one thing, making sure they are number one. KPI are monitored by an independent private-sector firm using an IT platform (E-government) which is not manipulated to trick or paint any picture, because - as they say - who exactly would we be fooling but ourselves. The civil servants in Singapore are the highest paid in the world, and for good reason - they are about true growth and development. I have gone there and seen it with my two eyes, spoken to them and discovered the secret behind their success. In 2011, they had a SG$65 billion surplus and for the next five years, it is all going into research and development to build out new technologies to keep them at number one.

A hotline without an empowered or legislative champion will not reap any reward. Jamaica is suffering from a leadership crisis, resulting in increased suffering and hardship for the citizens. Rich or poor, we are all under the gun. The mistake of many is to think that reality will not come calling at our door.

The People's National Party has come into office at a time when Jamaica needs solutions. Mrs Simpson Miller articulated a vision and a mission; we are still awaiting the implementation.

The small business people of Jamaica are at war with the elements and we are losing the battle including our lives.

- Edward Chin-Mook

Waste of time

We know what the obstacles are, so let us not waste valuable time to collect data and then waste more time to study the data. But, then again, the more red tape, the more opportunity for kickbacks and corruption.

- Enos Anderson

Political Parties take country low

Imagine, all those countries that are rated ahead of Jamaica are countries Jamaicans used to train. It's hard to believe, but it is true. This goes to show how low these two political parties have taken our country. Most of the weakness is because they have people in charge of areas that they know nothing about. The people with the training underperform when they find this because they don't think it is fair to them. Take, for example, the infrastructure sector; no one with engineering background has ever headed that portfolio. No preventive maintenance has ever been done in Jamaica since Independence.

- Joe