Montego Bay, St James – Keith Duncan, the CEO of Jamaica Money Market Brokers, Wednesday sent a strong message to the government to adequately compensate the nation’s teachers, lock up people responsible for squandering taxpayers’ money and invest in the Jamaican people.

“If we do not invest and invest wisely in our people – our greatest resource – we will reap what we sow, poverty,” he said.

His words triggered resounding applause from the audience at the first quarterly luncheon of the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce.

Pointing out that the country’s educational training institutions were not producing quality students, Duncan said that this was hampering the ability to maximise opportunities and investments in the knowledge-based service sector.

“We therefore have to transform the education system, it is simply not working,” he said. “We must stop the lip service and take concrete steps in the short term to begin a turn around. Some moves may be unpopular, for example performance-based compensation for teachers. We need results. To get results, we must adequately compensate our teachers, or we will get what we pay for. In the same way that we are able to increase compensation to politicians, we must find creative means to compensate our teachers,” he said.

Armed with world figures to substantiate his speech, Duncan pointed out that a comparison with seven other Caribbean countries showed that Jamaica, although spending more of its Gross Domestic Product on education than all but one, had the lowest literacy rate – 79.9 per cent – when compared with Barbados, Guyana, Trinidad, the Bahamas and East Asia inclusive of Singapore. Duncan also pointed out that Guyana aside, Jamaica was the weakest performer in the Caribbean Examination Council’s examinations.

Addressing corruption and waste, Duncan said that these had to be a major priority of government and the citizenry.

“The resources are too scarce to be squandered and wasted,” he said.

“Netserve, the Intech Fund, Operation Pride, National Solid Waste Management, North Coast Highway overruns, Sandals Whitehouse, billions and billions of dollars wasted. we do not have that luxury. we must take a zero-tolerance approach. there must be consequences.

Those responsible should be fired or held criminally responsible,” he said in reference to the several scandals that have emerged during the tenure of the ruling People’s National Party.