jamaica-gleaner editorial
IT WOULD be easy for our Government, and Jamaicans generally, to assume that there are no parallels between the violent uprising in Egypt against the long-serving President Hosni Mubarak, or the revolt in Tunisia that chucked out the dictator Zine el Abidine Ben Ali.
Nor might we see a congruence between anything in Jamaica and the events in Yemen, where President Ali Abdullah Saleh is under pressure from demonstrators; nor Algeria, where Abdelaziz Bouteflika has announced that a 20-year-old state of emergency is to be lifted.
Nor would Jamaica expect to be classified with Jordan, with its limited constitutional rule and where real power rests with King Abdullah III.
After all, Jamaica, its social malaise notwithstanding, is a functional democracy with high levels of individual freedom and the right of people to elect their government at intervals, although the process sometimes gets rather messy.
This newspaper, however, believes that as Jamaica watches the deepening unrest in North Africa and the Arab world, it is serious cause for concern. For while the proximate cause of the uprisings - Ben Ali, Mubarak and Co - may be to throw off repression in favour of democracy, the underlying issues are much deeper.
disenchanted young people
They are as much social and economic as political, and have been driven, primarily, by disenchanted young people. And therein lies our parallel.
Ben Ali, for instance, found it relatively easy to maintain social stability when his country's economy was in reasonably decent health. Things, however, have gone sour, and domestic economic problems have been aggravated by the global crisis. Political discontent has been exacerbated by high levels of joblessness and underemployment, particularly among young people.
In essence, the crises faced by youth in the North African and Arab states are not dissimilar to those highlighted by social anthropologist Professor Don Robotham in last Sunday's edition of this newspaper, and upon which we commented in the same issue.
urgent and robust attention
There are some harrowing facts worth recalling: nearly 400,000 people in the 15-29 age group - 59 per cent of the cohort - are either unemployed or out of the labour force. Of this group, 83 per cent have stopped looking for work, most likely because they believe that there are no jobs to be found.
Fixing problems such as these is never easy, but they always demand urgent and robust attention, which Prime Minister Bruce Golding and his Jamaica Labour Party promised would be the case when they came to office more than three years ago.
We have, however, neither felt nor seen the urgency of an administration that is driving hard for economic growth and giving substance to its promise of job creation. It has mostly pursued a predictable economic orthodoxy of the recent past, with little embrace of a real partnership with the private sector to jump-start and rev the economy.
Early in its tenure, this newspaper suggested to the administration the need for something akin to a job council, similar to the one US President Barack Obama appointed recently with General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt at the helm. We recommitted to the idea at the time of Mr Immelt's appointment and do so again.
We don't assume that Mr Obama has greater insight than our prime minister, unless the US president has a better grasp of Middle East matters.
The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.
February 4, 2011
jamaica-gleaner editorial
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Showing posts with label Jamaica government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jamaica government. Show all posts
Friday, February 4, 2011
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Jamaica's Prime Minister Bruce Golding admits lobby on behalf of drug accused Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke
Jamaica PM admits lobby on behalf of wanted man
caribbean360.com:
KINGSTON, Jamaica, Wednesday May 12, 2010 – A controversy surrounding efforts by the United States to have a drug accused extradited, and the Jamaica government’s resistance to those moves, yesterday became even more contentious as Prime Minister Bruce Golding admitted that he gave the nod for a law firm to be hired to lobby the US government on the extradition issue.
His admission was met with strong criticism across the floor of Parliament, even as he insisted the company was hired and paid by his Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and not the government.
Golding came clean on his involvement in the matter following weeks of allegations and claims that the government had engaged the services of US law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips to intervene as the US pushed its request for the extradition of Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, a member of the JLP stronghold of West Kingston who is wanted on gun and drug charges in the US.
“I sanctioned the initiative, knowing that such interventions have in the past proven to be of considerable value in dealing with issues involving the governments of both countries. I made it clear, however, that this was an initiative to be undertaken by the Party, not by or on behalf of the government,” Golding said yesterday.
“A payment of US$49,892.62 was made to Manatt, Phelps & Phillips on September 18th 2009. These funds were sourced from financial contributors to the Party. Rumours and speculation carried in the media that these funds were provided by Christopher Coke are completely false as the Party is fully aware of the source of these funds,” he added.
Prime Minister Golding further insisted that there was “absolutely nothing illegally or surreptitious” about what had been done, arguing that the engagement of lobbyists to act on behalf of foreign governments, political parties or corporations is a well-known practice in the United States governed by law.
Golding has been strongly resisting the attempt to extradite Coke on the grounds that wire-tap evidence gathered by the US authorities in their case against him was illegally obtained.
He said that the Extradition Treaty between Jamaica and the US specifies the type of information that must be provided in support of a request for extradition and maintained that the information presented in the Coke matter is unacceptable because “it has been used in violation of Jamaican law and in contravention of the expressed order of a Judge of the Supreme Court”.
“For the (Justice) Minister to ignore this violation and issue the authorization to proceed would be to condone and legitimize this violation and would be a dereliction of duty,” he said, adding that although the Jamaica government wrote formally to the US authorities back in September 2009 requesting additional or separate information that would enable Justice Minister Dorothy Lightbourne to sign the authorization to proceed, the US has “steadfastly refused to do so”.
“I wish to make it clear that the government will, without hesitation, facilitate the extradition of any Jamaican citizen wanted to stand trial for extraditable offences once the obligations under the Treaty are met. Christopher Coke is wanted for an alleged crime in the US for which he ought to be tried and the government of Jamaica, consistent with its obligations under the Treaty, will do everything necessary to facilitate his extradition once it is done in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty and the laws of our country,” Golding told the Parliament.
“Some argue that this is a matter for the Courts and not the Minister to determine. They are wrong! As I have already pointed out, the Treaty makes it clear that information sufficient to allow the Minister to authorize extradition proceedings must be presented before the request is submitted to the Courts. What we have, therefore, is a dispute regarding the application of the Treaty. A treaty dispute cannot be resolved by the Courts of either party to the dispute. This is why we have used every conceivable means to resolve this dispute through dialogue with the US authorities.”
Prime Minister Golding said that since the controversy and the suggestion that the government's stand is motivated by partisan considerations, his administration retained the services of a senior attorney to seek a declaration from the Court as to the duties of Justice Minister Dorothy Lightbourne and the matters she must properly take into account in exercising her authority under the Extradition Treaty.
JLP parliamentarians yesterday blasted Golding for not acknowledging his involvement in hiring Manatt, Phelps & Phillips earlier.
But the Prime Minister insisted that he replied truthfully when asked whether the Government of Jamaica had engaged the law firm’s services.
caribbean360
caribbean360.com:
KINGSTON, Jamaica, Wednesday May 12, 2010 – A controversy surrounding efforts by the United States to have a drug accused extradited, and the Jamaica government’s resistance to those moves, yesterday became even more contentious as Prime Minister Bruce Golding admitted that he gave the nod for a law firm to be hired to lobby the US government on the extradition issue.
His admission was met with strong criticism across the floor of Parliament, even as he insisted the company was hired and paid by his Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and not the government.
Golding came clean on his involvement in the matter following weeks of allegations and claims that the government had engaged the services of US law firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips to intervene as the US pushed its request for the extradition of Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke, a member of the JLP stronghold of West Kingston who is wanted on gun and drug charges in the US.
“I sanctioned the initiative, knowing that such interventions have in the past proven to be of considerable value in dealing with issues involving the governments of both countries. I made it clear, however, that this was an initiative to be undertaken by the Party, not by or on behalf of the government,” Golding said yesterday.
“A payment of US$49,892.62 was made to Manatt, Phelps & Phillips on September 18th 2009. These funds were sourced from financial contributors to the Party. Rumours and speculation carried in the media that these funds were provided by Christopher Coke are completely false as the Party is fully aware of the source of these funds,” he added.
Prime Minister Golding further insisted that there was “absolutely nothing illegally or surreptitious” about what had been done, arguing that the engagement of lobbyists to act on behalf of foreign governments, political parties or corporations is a well-known practice in the United States governed by law.
Golding has been strongly resisting the attempt to extradite Coke on the grounds that wire-tap evidence gathered by the US authorities in their case against him was illegally obtained.
He said that the Extradition Treaty between Jamaica and the US specifies the type of information that must be provided in support of a request for extradition and maintained that the information presented in the Coke matter is unacceptable because “it has been used in violation of Jamaican law and in contravention of the expressed order of a Judge of the Supreme Court”.
“For the (Justice) Minister to ignore this violation and issue the authorization to proceed would be to condone and legitimize this violation and would be a dereliction of duty,” he said, adding that although the Jamaica government wrote formally to the US authorities back in September 2009 requesting additional or separate information that would enable Justice Minister Dorothy Lightbourne to sign the authorization to proceed, the US has “steadfastly refused to do so”.
“I wish to make it clear that the government will, without hesitation, facilitate the extradition of any Jamaican citizen wanted to stand trial for extraditable offences once the obligations under the Treaty are met. Christopher Coke is wanted for an alleged crime in the US for which he ought to be tried and the government of Jamaica, consistent with its obligations under the Treaty, will do everything necessary to facilitate his extradition once it is done in accordance with the provisions of the Treaty and the laws of our country,” Golding told the Parliament.
“Some argue that this is a matter for the Courts and not the Minister to determine. They are wrong! As I have already pointed out, the Treaty makes it clear that information sufficient to allow the Minister to authorize extradition proceedings must be presented before the request is submitted to the Courts. What we have, therefore, is a dispute regarding the application of the Treaty. A treaty dispute cannot be resolved by the Courts of either party to the dispute. This is why we have used every conceivable means to resolve this dispute through dialogue with the US authorities.”
Prime Minister Golding said that since the controversy and the suggestion that the government's stand is motivated by partisan considerations, his administration retained the services of a senior attorney to seek a declaration from the Court as to the duties of Justice Minister Dorothy Lightbourne and the matters she must properly take into account in exercising her authority under the Extradition Treaty.
JLP parliamentarians yesterday blasted Golding for not acknowledging his involvement in hiring Manatt, Phelps & Phillips earlier.
But the Prime Minister insisted that he replied truthfully when asked whether the Government of Jamaica had engaged the law firm’s services.
caribbean360
Monday, December 28, 2009
Facing a new wave of social and economic bedlam under the IMF - Jamaica's dilemma
By Fritz-Earle McLymont:
My heart goes out to the families of the 117,000 civil servants who are planned casualties of the Jamaica government’s transformation program. I pity the official upon whom the responsibility for implementing this disaster has been thrust.
Following the resignation of the head of the Central Bank and the Commissioner of Police, I saw the red flag of the IMF. I just concluded reading Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine that chronicles the effects of economic “shock therapy” and the consequences to the local economies. From Bolivia, to Chile to Argentina to Russia, the stories are the same: the citizens suffer. Klein attributes much of the disaster to the attempt to carry out Friedmanite economic policies, with the support or complicity of the IMF. But the results have been the same: disaster and terror for large segments of the population whose leaders seek sustenance at the IMF trough.
The IMF issued its first full-fledged “structural adjustment” program in 1983. For the next two decades, every country that came to the fund for a major loan was informed that it needed to revamp its economy from top to bottom. According to Shock Doctrine, David Budhoo, an IMF senior economist who designed structural adjustment programs in Latin America and Africa throughout the eighties, admitted later that “everything we did from 1983 onward was based on our new sense of mission to have the south privatized or die; towards this end we ignominiously created economic bedlam in Latin America and Africa in 1983-88.” I have yet to see real long-term social and economic progress in any of these IMF-adjusted countries.
Somewhere between 1979 and 1981, I was spared personal disaster while managing a government enterprise in Jamaica. I persuaded the workers and union to accept minimum increases in wages for two years to enable the company to increase its assets and consequently its income. The plan worked and when the time came to give the big wage increase from earnings that did accumulate, I was told that IMF guidelines prohibited me from giving the promised increase. Given the social and political tensions in Jamaica at the time, I had no intention of facing more than 150 Jamaican workers to tell them that the deal was off. No one from the IMF was willing to do so either. Fortunately, I learned that the IMF instruction was not a law of the Jamaican government, but a directive from Washington. I found a creative way to get around the IMF policy and my workers got their increase, leaving me safe to walk the streets of Montego Bay.
A few countries, such as Malaysia, have rejected IMF medicine and survived. In the 1990s, when the IMF offered to help the “Asian tigers” withstand a financial assault on their fast-growing economies, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad declined the offer, saying that, with relatively small debt, he did not have to “destroy the economy in order that it should become better.” The IMF official in charge of the talks at the time said, “You can’t force a country to ask you for help. It has to ask. But when it is out of money, it hasn’t got many places to turn.” Malaysia proved him wrong. A predominantly Muslim country whose people had been instructed to save for the pilgrimage to Mecca, it turned to local banks that were flush with pilgrimage cash.
Can we instill in Jamaicans a similar behavioral change of sacrificing a little today for a long-term benefit? In the 1990s I witnessed the fever pitch in long, patient lines as Jamaicans sought quick money from the Partner scams. This same patience, faith and commitment must now shift Jamaica into productive energy if our country is to survive. For the global challenge in this century will be productivity not money.
Jamaicans often compare Jamaica with economically successful Singapore, both former colonies. Jamaica is a victim of its own choices. At about the same time that Singapore’s leaders chose to invest heavily in the development of their productive capacity, Jamaica rejected the direction of industrial development, advocated by Jamaican industrialists such as Robert Lightbourne, and opted for quick money, either borrowed or donated. Tourism, bauxite and agriculture were expected to be significant contributors to growth, but they have performed feebly in spite of considerable investment of the borrowed or donated funds. Today’s generation is paying for those choices in the form of debt burden. From 1980 to 1986, Jamaica's total debt doubled, making the island one of the most indebted countries in the world on a per capita basis. Jamaica's debt peaked in the mid-1980s at US$3.5 billion. With IMF and World Bank conditionalities in force, Jamaica experienced a 30 percent leap in unemployment, a 30 percent fall in public investment and a fall of 48 percent in real incomes between 1983 and 1985. By 1984 the World Bank proclaimed Jamaica one of its success stories because its trade balance had shifted into surplus. But it was a 'success' in which 29 percent of children under three years old were malnourished, 43 percent of mothers were anemic, and polio deaths had appeared for the first time in 30 years. Between 1996 and 2003, Jamaica’s public debt rose by 71 percentage points of GDP – a growth considered a reflection of changing circumstances at home and conditions abroad.
Today, with a public debt in the range of US$15 billion, Jamaica’s Ministry of Finance is preparing the country for another IMF hit. Moody’s, the rating service, has downgraded Jamaica’s rating for internal and external bonds. Alessandra Alecci, its vice president/senior analyst, explained why: “The negative outlook reflects uncertainty associated with the potential consequences of protracted delays in reaching a final agreement with the IMF. Such a situation would lead to a loss of confidence that could negatively affect the exchange rate and exert upward pressures on domestic interest rates. If these conditions were to materialize, they could create a situation in which the government's liquidity would be stretched and investors would face higher losses as the decision to restructure debt would be made under duress.”
I do not expect the financial news out of Jamaica to improve any time soon. However, if change is actually taking place globally, paying serious attention to infrastructure improvement and production by Jamaicans may be the good news for the future. The words of a Morgan Stanley executive on the Asian crisis of the 1990s are worth heeding: “What we need now in Asia is more bad news. Bad news is needed to keep stimulating the adjustment process.”
Let’s respectfully accept the words of such foreign experts as opinions not prescriptions.
There is some consolation in the fact that most of Jamaica’s debt is held by local institutions, which should be more open than foreign lenders to seeking long-term solutions that ease the pain. The short-term situation is bad. Estimates are that over 55 percent of the central government’s revenue goes to service debts that stand at 16 percent of GDP for the current fiscal year. Over the past ten years Jamaica’s public debt to GDP ratio remained above 100 percent. Jamaicans must accept the challenge to produce for its domestic needs. Growth and productivity must come from within, as proven by Singapore’s success.
In a recent interview, Prime Minister Golding acknowledged the positive impact of Rastafari on the Jamaican society over the past 50 years. Much can be learned from the Rastafari experience, a uniquely Jamaican development -- from recycling rubber tyres for shoes and building shelter from scrap to providing a multibillion-dollar cultural product (Reggae) to the global music and entertainment industry. The Ital lifestyle (Google Ital) pioneered in Jamaica is now part of a global alternative lifestyle representing a multibillion-dollar industry. These are testimonies to Jamaica’s ability to produce from within.
While some have been seeking external solutions to our financial and economic problems, our homegrown professionals have been producing world class athletes and performing artists with a fraction of the investment that other countries incur. The health, wellness and sports industries are multibillion-dollar sectors not yet fully exploited.
I hope the next group of esteemed Jamaicans pondering solutions to the island’s productivity challenge will look to Usain Bolt and Mutabaruka, two of the island’s most recognized talents now lecturing to a global audience, as further examples of homegrown successes in their respective industries in and outside the island. They follow such international Jamaican icons as Bob Marley and Marcus Garvey. How far removed these performers seem from the “crisis,” where “a situation in which the government's liquidity would be stretched and investors would face higher losses as the decision to restructure debt would be made under duress.”
I have been known to offer advice when not asked and I shall do it again. Jamaica’s Prime Minister should take the Jamaican creditors for a few days’ retreat in the Cockpit country of Trelawny, a major producer of yam. Start the day with an early morning jog with Bolt, one hour per day with a producing yam farmer, and evenings in a reasoning session on “success” with Mutabaruka.
Somewhere I learned that success is not where you are but the obstacles you had to overcome to get where you are. I remain optimistic about Jamaica’s future success. We have a long history of overcoming obstacles. Our political leaders must look at this history for answers.
Fritz-Earle S. McLymont, a Jamaican, is Managing Partner of McLymont, Kunda & Co. an international trade and development strategist firm, and Managing Director of NMBC Global, a not for profit organization involved in international development. He can be contacted at Fmclymont1@nmbc.org
December 28, 2009
caribdaily
My heart goes out to the families of the 117,000 civil servants who are planned casualties of the Jamaica government’s transformation program. I pity the official upon whom the responsibility for implementing this disaster has been thrust.
Following the resignation of the head of the Central Bank and the Commissioner of Police, I saw the red flag of the IMF. I just concluded reading Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine that chronicles the effects of economic “shock therapy” and the consequences to the local economies. From Bolivia, to Chile to Argentina to Russia, the stories are the same: the citizens suffer. Klein attributes much of the disaster to the attempt to carry out Friedmanite economic policies, with the support or complicity of the IMF. But the results have been the same: disaster and terror for large segments of the population whose leaders seek sustenance at the IMF trough.
The IMF issued its first full-fledged “structural adjustment” program in 1983. For the next two decades, every country that came to the fund for a major loan was informed that it needed to revamp its economy from top to bottom. According to Shock Doctrine, David Budhoo, an IMF senior economist who designed structural adjustment programs in Latin America and Africa throughout the eighties, admitted later that “everything we did from 1983 onward was based on our new sense of mission to have the south privatized or die; towards this end we ignominiously created economic bedlam in Latin America and Africa in 1983-88.” I have yet to see real long-term social and economic progress in any of these IMF-adjusted countries.
Somewhere between 1979 and 1981, I was spared personal disaster while managing a government enterprise in Jamaica. I persuaded the workers and union to accept minimum increases in wages for two years to enable the company to increase its assets and consequently its income. The plan worked and when the time came to give the big wage increase from earnings that did accumulate, I was told that IMF guidelines prohibited me from giving the promised increase. Given the social and political tensions in Jamaica at the time, I had no intention of facing more than 150 Jamaican workers to tell them that the deal was off. No one from the IMF was willing to do so either. Fortunately, I learned that the IMF instruction was not a law of the Jamaican government, but a directive from Washington. I found a creative way to get around the IMF policy and my workers got their increase, leaving me safe to walk the streets of Montego Bay.
A few countries, such as Malaysia, have rejected IMF medicine and survived. In the 1990s, when the IMF offered to help the “Asian tigers” withstand a financial assault on their fast-growing economies, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad declined the offer, saying that, with relatively small debt, he did not have to “destroy the economy in order that it should become better.” The IMF official in charge of the talks at the time said, “You can’t force a country to ask you for help. It has to ask. But when it is out of money, it hasn’t got many places to turn.” Malaysia proved him wrong. A predominantly Muslim country whose people had been instructed to save for the pilgrimage to Mecca, it turned to local banks that were flush with pilgrimage cash.
Can we instill in Jamaicans a similar behavioral change of sacrificing a little today for a long-term benefit? In the 1990s I witnessed the fever pitch in long, patient lines as Jamaicans sought quick money from the Partner scams. This same patience, faith and commitment must now shift Jamaica into productive energy if our country is to survive. For the global challenge in this century will be productivity not money.
Jamaicans often compare Jamaica with economically successful Singapore, both former colonies. Jamaica is a victim of its own choices. At about the same time that Singapore’s leaders chose to invest heavily in the development of their productive capacity, Jamaica rejected the direction of industrial development, advocated by Jamaican industrialists such as Robert Lightbourne, and opted for quick money, either borrowed or donated. Tourism, bauxite and agriculture were expected to be significant contributors to growth, but they have performed feebly in spite of considerable investment of the borrowed or donated funds. Today’s generation is paying for those choices in the form of debt burden. From 1980 to 1986, Jamaica's total debt doubled, making the island one of the most indebted countries in the world on a per capita basis. Jamaica's debt peaked in the mid-1980s at US$3.5 billion. With IMF and World Bank conditionalities in force, Jamaica experienced a 30 percent leap in unemployment, a 30 percent fall in public investment and a fall of 48 percent in real incomes between 1983 and 1985. By 1984 the World Bank proclaimed Jamaica one of its success stories because its trade balance had shifted into surplus. But it was a 'success' in which 29 percent of children under three years old were malnourished, 43 percent of mothers were anemic, and polio deaths had appeared for the first time in 30 years. Between 1996 and 2003, Jamaica’s public debt rose by 71 percentage points of GDP – a growth considered a reflection of changing circumstances at home and conditions abroad.
Today, with a public debt in the range of US$15 billion, Jamaica’s Ministry of Finance is preparing the country for another IMF hit. Moody’s, the rating service, has downgraded Jamaica’s rating for internal and external bonds. Alessandra Alecci, its vice president/senior analyst, explained why: “The negative outlook reflects uncertainty associated with the potential consequences of protracted delays in reaching a final agreement with the IMF. Such a situation would lead to a loss of confidence that could negatively affect the exchange rate and exert upward pressures on domestic interest rates. If these conditions were to materialize, they could create a situation in which the government's liquidity would be stretched and investors would face higher losses as the decision to restructure debt would be made under duress.”
I do not expect the financial news out of Jamaica to improve any time soon. However, if change is actually taking place globally, paying serious attention to infrastructure improvement and production by Jamaicans may be the good news for the future. The words of a Morgan Stanley executive on the Asian crisis of the 1990s are worth heeding: “What we need now in Asia is more bad news. Bad news is needed to keep stimulating the adjustment process.”
Let’s respectfully accept the words of such foreign experts as opinions not prescriptions.
There is some consolation in the fact that most of Jamaica’s debt is held by local institutions, which should be more open than foreign lenders to seeking long-term solutions that ease the pain. The short-term situation is bad. Estimates are that over 55 percent of the central government’s revenue goes to service debts that stand at 16 percent of GDP for the current fiscal year. Over the past ten years Jamaica’s public debt to GDP ratio remained above 100 percent. Jamaicans must accept the challenge to produce for its domestic needs. Growth and productivity must come from within, as proven by Singapore’s success.
In a recent interview, Prime Minister Golding acknowledged the positive impact of Rastafari on the Jamaican society over the past 50 years. Much can be learned from the Rastafari experience, a uniquely Jamaican development -- from recycling rubber tyres for shoes and building shelter from scrap to providing a multibillion-dollar cultural product (Reggae) to the global music and entertainment industry. The Ital lifestyle (Google Ital) pioneered in Jamaica is now part of a global alternative lifestyle representing a multibillion-dollar industry. These are testimonies to Jamaica’s ability to produce from within.
While some have been seeking external solutions to our financial and economic problems, our homegrown professionals have been producing world class athletes and performing artists with a fraction of the investment that other countries incur. The health, wellness and sports industries are multibillion-dollar sectors not yet fully exploited.
I hope the next group of esteemed Jamaicans pondering solutions to the island’s productivity challenge will look to Usain Bolt and Mutabaruka, two of the island’s most recognized talents now lecturing to a global audience, as further examples of homegrown successes in their respective industries in and outside the island. They follow such international Jamaican icons as Bob Marley and Marcus Garvey. How far removed these performers seem from the “crisis,” where “a situation in which the government's liquidity would be stretched and investors would face higher losses as the decision to restructure debt would be made under duress.”
I have been known to offer advice when not asked and I shall do it again. Jamaica’s Prime Minister should take the Jamaican creditors for a few days’ retreat in the Cockpit country of Trelawny, a major producer of yam. Start the day with an early morning jog with Bolt, one hour per day with a producing yam farmer, and evenings in a reasoning session on “success” with Mutabaruka.
Somewhere I learned that success is not where you are but the obstacles you had to overcome to get where you are. I remain optimistic about Jamaica’s future success. We have a long history of overcoming obstacles. Our political leaders must look at this history for answers.
Fritz-Earle S. McLymont, a Jamaican, is Managing Partner of McLymont, Kunda & Co. an international trade and development strategist firm, and Managing Director of NMBC Global, a not for profit organization involved in international development. He can be contacted at Fmclymont1@nmbc.org
December 28, 2009
caribdaily
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