IN early 2006 at the inauguration of Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, the nation had reason to leave the dashed hopes of previous years behind as it envisaged positive change for the future.

In September 2007, we were at it again as Prime Minister Bruce Golding, in his acceptance speech, gave us cause to believe in the lofty vision he had for this country. A few months ago a young and seemingly energetic Prime Minister Andrew Holness again injected hope in some of us and made us believe that the best of us could be realised.

A few days ago, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller was again at it, in a speech trying to inspire hope and painting a picture of brighter tomorrows. Most of us who are reasonable people want to believe the words and are quite willing to give her and her team the needed time to put the new plans into action. At the same time, there will be those of us who will have forgotten that as a collective whole, no sector or group of us can afford to sit it out and wait on themâ to get it right. We all have a stake in the proceedings.

At another level political reality has that dirty habit of awakening us from our dreamy-eyed slumber. We have been there before, have witnessed the political brinksmanship before and have seen the two tribes fighting for the sweet and intoxicating power that a win at the polls gives them.

We have seen them both trying to win us over with falsehoods from the podium; we have seen them relentlessly denigrating those from the other side, all in an effort to sway us into voting for their side. Those of us who witnessed the dawn of Independence on August 6, 1962, have some reason to be thankful, but, if we are truly honest, we also have more reason to be angry at our political leaders and at ourselves for being willing spectators to the grand game.

We truly ache to believe and to move in synch with the directions of our leaders, but intermittent doses of reality tell us that the words we have heard from them in the last 50 years have not been anywhere near representative of their deeds. More importantly, as a people, too much of our energy is spent trying to secure a one-way ticket out of Jamaica and we indulge our love/hate relationship with our island home. Someone else must do the real work, preferably themâ as we see ourselves as the victims.

In the fight for political power and the huge outlay of funds energised at all levels in the pursuit of that objective, oftentimes the development of our people and the nation come out as an unintended consequence of the real objective, too much of which is proximity to the public purse, predation and the empowerment of friends and cronies.

For those of us who dearly wish to join the leap of faith and adulation directed at the prime minister and her team, we have the past to remind us, but still there is that nagging "what if". What if we are wrong and the new PNP prime minister and her team leave the past behind and embark on real development objectives while remaining fully accountable to the people? What if we could see the sordid past as no indication of the future?

One of the main factors which blew the JLP out of power was its insistence that power meant it had to listen to no one. As long as it maintained the right macroeconomic variables and convinced itself that it was on the right path, nuh guy nuh fi sey nutten!

Ministers being chauffeured in swank air-conditioned SUVs with security detail made too many of them immerse their personalities in roles of the village tyrant and the newly liberated house slave off to the fields to lord it over the poor unfortunates toiling in the sun.

There have been more than a few who have criticised the size of the new PNP Cabinet, but they seem to forget that a political win translates to giving out long-service awards. I am, however, quite willing to buy into the prime minister's explanation that succession planning is at the heart of that process. If those who have been there before show a human face to political power, something which the JLP found most difficult, while taking promising junior ministers through the ropes, I believe that in one or two years' time a Cabinet re-shuffle should see the emergence of the younger, brighter and more energetic junior ministers to full responsibility.

The matter which is most current, certainly with those young, unemployed people who told me they voted PNP, is JEEP, the emergency employment programme which the PNP introduced as a policy proposal at its conference last year.

The prime minister has indicated that she and her team are in negotiations with the Chinese in an effort to use the JDIP funds (originally earmarked for road repairs). Most of the complaints that kept on cropping up last year with road repairs was that, unlike the old Public Works Department (PWD) formula which tended to use community residents, under the JDIP the National Works Agency (NWA) or its sub-contractors would move into an area to effect road repairs with its imported crew.

In those instances, the community benefited from a more improved road network while the unemployed residents shared in none of the employment. If JEEP embarks on an employment programme, how long will it last and to what extent will it displace or complement road repairs using community workers?

In an article in the LA Times, columnist Dimitri Papadimitriou suggests the following: At the theoretical heart of job-creation programmes is this fact: Only government, because it is not seeking profitability when it is hiring, can create a demand for labour that is elastic enough to keep a nation near full employment. During a downturn, when a government offers a demand for unemployed workers, it takes on a role analogous to the one that the Federal Reserve plays when it provides liquidity to banks. As in banking, setting an appropriate rate, in this case, a wage, is one key component for success, with the goal of employing those willing and able to work at or marginally below prevailing informal wages.

In taking a jab at the private sector and its core objectives, the writer states a truism. It's unreasonable to expect private enterprises to solve these problems. Full employment isn't an objective of businesses. Companies usually strive to keep staffing at a minimum (we've all heard the virtues of lean and mean). There simply isn't any known automatic mechanism, in the markets or elsewhere, that creates jobs in numbers that match the pool of people willing and able to work.

As a nation we need to believe that our political leaders are fully aware of our problems and have the expertise to lead us into adopting their policy proposals and plans.

If JEEP really has that engine, it could be the very start of giving our large mass of unemployed youth reason to believe that the words of our leaders can match up to the deeds. For a start, that is.

observemark@gmail.com

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