Some local business leaders are expressing reservations about the so-called ‘Singapore model’ being used as the formula to break the back of Jamaica’s chronic economic woes.
For Delroy Morgan, conceptualiser of the inaugural Leaders-to-Leaders Speaker Series that started yesterday, a collision of cultural practices would likely derail such a programme, which is being dubbed by some as the road map to Jamaica’s prosperity.
“I think it’s like comparing apples to oranges,” asserted Morgan, ahead of yesterday’s luncheon meeting at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston.
He argued that the model has worked for Singapore because of the infrastructure in place that is endemic to that country.
Patrick King, director of sales at Digicel Jamaica, agreed with Morgan that several obstacles would militate the success of such an initiative in Jamaica, but former Prime Minister Edward Seaga appeared to be focused on how such a system could reverse the economic travails.
Since 1968, the People’s Action Party has won consecutive elections and held state power for protracted periods in Singapore, while ensuring that the party’s high efficiency and vitality led Singapore to leap forward economically.
Former Singapore prime minister Lee Kuan Yew is credited with developing a booming First-World economy from a malarial Third-World swamp.
For years, Seaga had mooted the model as Jamaica’s likely path to growth, a sentiment that has gained momentum in some quarters.
Last week, a professor from Singapore suggested that zero tolerance for corruption and the strong rule of law are two strategies Jamaica must employ to achieve economic growth and sustainable development.
Professor Tommy Koh, ambassador-at-large in Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs who headed a Singapore delegation which attended a meeting of the International Seabed Authority at the Jamaica Conference Centre in downtown Kingston last Friday, told The Gleaner that though Jamaica has lost its way economically since gaining political independence, it could still duplicate the Singapore miracle.
Said Koh: “Get your fundamentals right, educate your people well, practise meritocracy (where) no one is appointed to a job because he knows somebody, and with the strong rule of law, zero corruption and business-friendly economy you can do it.”
Yesterday, King argued that duplicating the Singapore model was easier said than done, as the Singapore model was a statist programme led by a benevolent dictator in Lee. He suggested the democracy-loving people of Jamaica would balk at such a political posture.
Seaga on the other hand contended that it was more political will than personality that would drive the model to success.
He said the Singapore model was driven by a national savings programme called a Sovereign Fund that cauterised capital flight.
Within this context, Seaga said there was need for a system of investment in which most of the profits would be deployed into further investment and not out of the country.
Yesterday Seaga, King and Desmond Malcolm, general manager of the Urban Development Corporation (UDC), delivered keynote speeches on the theme ‘Transforming Our Downtown and Urban Core: Why doing so is good for business’.
gary.spaulding@gleanerjm.com
Wrong way for Jamaica - Business leaders wary of Singapore prosperity road ...
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét