Dear Editor,

The government should capitalise on the public’s sentiment that a new beginning is necessary. There is widespread consensus that the West Kingston inner-city communities need to be rescued from the squalor and deprivation that exists. The oppressed must be given hope. The government should therefore consider a Marshall Plan approach to inner-city renewal. This should be funded mainly by a GCT increase to be determined.

Because this would require IMF approval, the opportunity exists for conditionality being imposed that would ensure that the specific objectives determined for the fund are respected and the fund so set up that it could not be raided in future to support general government revenues.

Because this would require IMF approval, the opportunity exists for conditionality being imposed that would ensure that the specific objectives determined for the fund are respected and the fund so set up that it could not be raided in future to support general government revenues.

A West Kingston development plan could be funded drawing on several previous planning initiatives that have targeted specific communities. A new government company, perhaps not unlike the Urban Development Corporation in planning capability and the NHT in broadly based board representation, could spearhead this. In the meantime, economic relief and welfare support programmes could flow as soon as the tax is levied, without awaiting the institutional legal frameworks to fall into place. We need a bold new, long-term initiative to change the West Kingston landscape and I sense that the Jamaican people would support a dedicated tax to achieve this. Informed readers will remember the post-World War Two Marshall Plan that laid the foundation for modern Europe. Why can’t we conceive something similar here? Let the government give us the vision, and the first step will have been taken.

Who would argue against naming this plan in honour of the first member of our security forces to sacrifice his life under the current state of emergency? At the time of writing his name was not officially released but we know that his life was given so that a new West Kingston could be born.

George Campbell

Stony Hill

Oeg20@hotmail.com