Is Jamaica destined to be poor forever?

As long as the people of a country see their economic future as being directly linked to securing a visa, boarding a plane and leaving what they see as the wretchedness of their homeland, their country will always be shortchanged and depressingly poor.

It makes me wonder if those of us who are still in Jamaica have not done ourselves a disservice by remaining here as mere gatekeepers, constantly seeing our economic future slip away into nothingness and spending too many hours worrying about the safety of our loved ones and ourselves on the streets of our two cities and the many inner city pockets of our small towns.

We can, I suppose, console ourselves that someone had to remain behind to turn off the lights if that became necessary. Although we have acknowledged that as a people, there is little to be proud of in the last 40-plus years since our independence, we can take solace in the fact that many of our people, on an individual basis have made their marks on the world stage and not just our athletes.

While acknowledging that the type of politics practised in Jamaica in the last 50 years is a direct cause of our economic debilitation and social fragmentation, it must be also pointed out that it is always much easier to control a people than it is to control the mind of a person.

The politicians and the priests know this.

So each election cycle, as a few of us bleat about the failures of the political party we did not support and invest hope in the party of the moment, deep down we know that not much will change. Politics has little in the way of taking the nation forward as it is about allocating scarce and dwindling resources to small pockets of those who will empower the party of the moment.

Many Jamaicans, including myself, have cited the example of Singapore which was way behind Jamaica in economic development in the 1960s. Singapore did it with strong and decisive leadership which at times, bordered on dictatorship. Which Jamaican leader could have asked our unions to leave their agitation in the gutter, face the press full frontal and neuter it and then engineer to make the opposition redundant while convincing our people that it would be all in the national interest and, there would be a pot of gold at the end?

It could not have worked in Jamaica for the simple reason that our level of education would not have prepared our people for that investment of political faith. It would not have worked once our political leaders saw our people for what they were – loud, fractious, fragmented, too steeped in ignorance and not eager to learn. With that accepted as a given, our politicians of the last 40-plus years gave up on the grand plan for nation building, bearing in mind the notion that the teacher will not show up if the student is always in a state of un-readiness.

So our politicians showed up, many to reap and others to sell the idea that those who appeared to be reaping were actually working for the benefit of the people.

A Jamaican business person venturing out for the first time or a foreign investor will soon realise that in doing business with the various government agencies, the bureaucracy is not about streamlining the operations as it is in justifying the employment of a highly inefficient civil service.

So, in an age where the computer and the internet is king, Jamaica is about 40 years behind, requiring time consuming leg work, endless documentation from different offices and all designed to justify the backwardness of government in creating a useless and stifling bureaucracy.

In last Sunday’s column I had posited the planned Logistics Hub as Jamaica’s last chance for real development and wealth creation. One Jamaican living in Canada wrote,

‘Greetings from the land of snow ice (-22 C last night). I fully support the move to transform Jamaica into a logistics hub. Groundwork on the expansion of the Panama Canal is well under way. I saw it first hand when I visited Colon, Panama, as one of the ports of call on my recent 11-day Caribbean cruise. On tour to the Gatun Lakes, where the first set of locks at the Pacific entrance to the canal were, a huge area was excavated which will be turned into a lake to accommodate a wider lock, alongside the existing ones.

‘The new lock will accommodate much larger vessels. I saw the entrance of a vessel carrying 4800 containers. That brought in revenue of US$380,000. When the expansion is completed, even bigger vessels will use the waterway. What many may not know is that use of the canal has to be booked with lead times up to a year even though there is 24-hour operation and approximately 30 minutes to pass through the Gatun locks on the Pacific entrance.

So, with bigger cargoes, possible a transshipment port such as Kingston is ideal. It is for us to seize the opportunity.’

Another reader, this time, someone close to the PNP called me and said: ‘Why are you constantly writing about the faith you have in the project when from all indications, there is much inactivity on the part of Minister Hylton?’

I asked him what he meant. ‘You keep on citing joined-up Government but ask yourself this … How many of the respective Government ministries do you see showing an interest in this? Why is the Transport and Works ministry so silent? Have you seen any interest from Minister Paulwell’s ministry?’

More importantly, when last did you hear the Prime Minister make a shout-out on this Logictics Hub?’

My response was to tell the person that too much of this project is tied up in the economic future of Jamaica that the PNP will be condemned and may pay the ultimate political price if it messes up this last chance.

He said, ‘my problem is, I need to see this “joined-up” Government in action. I need to see the Cabinet taking this on as Jamaica’s project, instead of it being confined to the Investment, Industry and Commerce ministry, which by the way, had nothing of significance in the way of investments in the last year.’

We were both agreed on the fact that some tangible activity needed to be seen NOW if the deadlines for 2015 are to be met.

We have been poor for so long that we run the risk of becoming settled in the idea that poverty will be with us forever.

observemark@gmail.com

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Is Jamaica destined to be poor forever?

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Is Jamaica destined to be poor forever?