Dear Editor,

When one reads snippets of the presentation Sharon Ffolkes-Abrahams, minister of state in the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce, made to the Montego Bay Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s Expo Seminar and Panel Discussion in Montego Bay last Friday, one would think that she was talking about Istanbul, and not Jamaica. In her remarks, she suggested that Jamaica, because of its geo-strategic (not geographic and strategic) location, was a primary, if not the only, north-south-east-west option for supply or value-chains within the Western Hemisphere. It was as if she was suggesting that the world of trade and commerce revolves around Jamaica’s nexus.

If the geographic location she was referring to was not identified, one would have mistakenly thought that Jamaica is at the new world’s commercial and historic centre, as Istanbul was to Europe and Asia in the days of old. In fact, Istanbul is still important in the grand scheme of things, as, in 2010, it was named European Capital of Culture. But Jamaicans should know better than this sort of self-anointed self-importance. It only encourages those who believe it to sit back at their dining tables, and order their household helpers to heap another serving of crocodile meat on their plates.

Jamaica is good at talking big about game-changing ideas. Yet it cannot even safely transport (rural) high school students to and from school.

I could have missed it. But to date, I have not heard the czar, Dr Omar Davies, the minister of transport, works and housing — and, as some might suggest, everything else — utter one word about the tragedy that involved four Holmwood Technical High School students. I guess the issue of providing safe means of transportation for poor people intra-Jamaica is not a big enough issue to demand the minister’s attention. Because, it might not, in his view, be a “game-changer”.

It might serve both the minister of state in the Ministry of Industry, Investment and Commerce, and the minister of transport, works and housing well to read The Bigness Complex, written by the University of Chicago-trained professor of economics at, and a past president of, Michigan State University. Co-authored with James Brock, a professor of economics at Miami University of Ohio, it was first published in 1986 and subsequently re-published in 2004 by Stanford University Press. In a nutshell, it suggested that sometimes, small morsels might be better than big bites. They are easier to digest.

Ray Ford

fordraye1@aol.com