Dear Editor,

We have been able, through infrastructure developmental programmes, to provide electricity, water and roads to many Jamaicans.

However, we have been unable to empower our people to levels whereby they can afford these amenities. So they steal electricity and water, which certainly defeats the purpose.

The Government, playing the role of referee, must be able ensure that private sector companies can provide jobs from which they will, in turn, derive benefits in terms of taxes.

Singapore is ranked by expatriates as the world’s best place to live, ahead of the US and the UK. There is an estimated 300,000 expatriates living there. The safe environment and relatively low taxes make it an ideal location for growth and to protect savings and investment.

The prime minister has to be able to put loyalty aside and reshuffle her Cabinet. Lisa Hanna would best serve the nation in Science, Technology, Energy and Mining. Some may seem surprised, but Hanna displayed a credible interest in alternative energy, especially clean coal. She evidently researched the topic and posited the idea that a coal plant could generate enough power to satisfy demands on Jamaica’s north coast.

We cannot fit people in positions based on sex, we have to judge them based on interest, determination, dedication, and discipline. After eighteen and one half years of PNP rule and four years of JLP rule, we are unable to seriously build a waste to energy plant. Waste from garbage dump sites and sewage-disposal systems can be converted to fuel.This will provide an efficient solution to waste disposal. A new study, in 2012, conducted by the Earth Engineering Center of Columbia University and sponsored by the American Chemistry Council, found that if, somehow, all of the municipal waste currently landfilled in the US were diverted to new waste-to-energy power plants, they would produce enough electricity to power more than 16 million households annually. There goes our problems with fires at our landfills.

The Government has numerous consultants, advisers and technocrats, many of whom earn far more than our ministers. Yet they seem to blindly follow the leader with all types of hare-brained schemes. They know when an idea is feasible or not, yet intellectual dishonesty — probably enhanced by financial security — shapes their decisions.

When a minister comes up with some thing he has dreamed up after a heavy mea,l don’t sanction it! This is possibly the last chance Jamaica has to climb out of debt, we cannot encourage leaders with stupid ideas, no matter how nice they may sound.

Last week’s glich in a bank may delay teachers pay, but what happens if we are unable to pay teachers, nurses, doctors, policemen or reduce their overtime significantly, as is occuring in the United States, because we simply don’t have the resources to do so? Can you imagine the chaos?

Mark Clarke

Siloah,

St Elizabeth

mark_clarke9@yahoo.com