A plea for a new era

Monday, October 03, 2011

Dear Editor,

I am writing to you today because we need a new beginning when it comes to decision-making for our politicians.

For once we need to put our country first. We cannot afford this type of incredible money wastage. This unfortunately is not confined to one party but instead we have reckless decision makers on both sides of the house. Examples that spring to mind are: (1) Trelawny Stadium, (2) Sabina Park, (3) Clarendon Railway, (4) Sligoville Stadium, (5) Boscobel Ian Fleming International Airport, (6) Palisadoes Highway in Kingston. And we could go on and on.

Politicians may try and argue that this is not a waste of money — it is as simple as that. Just ask why did no one in the private sector do these projects? Would anyone from the private sector take up these projects and make a living from them — NO is the answer because they are dead ducks!

Think of what we could do with this money. Potholes all over the country could be fixed, which would decrease the amount of damage to cars and tires. City centre roads could be expanded in Ocho Rios, Montego Bay and Kingston city centre, which would help alleviate the traffic, which is so wasteful in terms of human hours spent in the car, petrol and hence foreign currency consumed.

Alternatively, we could have invested this money in the training of our people which would make investment in Jamaica more appealing. Look at the positives that the convention centre has created in Montego Bay and we will see the benefits for years to come. We could have utilised this money to build call centres and industrial parks in the large cities noted above including Portmore, which can in turn be used to attract investment that will create the employment we crave so much.

What is our obsession with wastage of money and airports in this country? Boscobel and St Elizabeth aerodrome are both used so infrequently and yet both consume money from the government purse that we cannot afford.

The latest is talk of a further two airport projects (Dragon Bay and Clarendon), which again will cost every Jamaican man, woman and child money they don’t have. We need to have a situation whereby any large project must have Greg Christie sign off on it, or private sector participation of say 25 per cent or an independent board made up from private sector business people with no political affiliations (perhaps appointed by the Governor General) who will sign off on the business case.

Why not have a fresh start and turn a new leaf? The politicians admit that they have made bad decisions for political gain in the past and from now all investment decisions will be made based on sound economic principles.

Jacob Wilson

jacob.wilson21@hotmail.com