“We have decided on the procurement of a large 360MHz electrical generation plant. We have yet to be told of the frequency of operation; 50 Hz or 60 Hz…

“Eventually the current 40-year-old turbines now in use will have to be sold as scrap iron — the sooner the better. Installing anything other than a modern and, I dare say, less costly 60Hz electric generation plant would be nothing but a sick joke unworthy even of pantomime jesters.”

The above was from a recently written column headlined ‘Is the OUR serious about Jamaican energy cost?’ in the Western Mirror by Hedley Jones, Musgrave Gold Medal winner, inventor, engineer, composer, musician, amateur astronomer, newspaper columnist, soon to be given a Reggae Lifetime award and a man just a few years shy of 100.

According to 96-year-old Mr Jones, our importers of motor-driven commodities are not concerned with efficiency and so continue to take into the country motor-driven appliances and machinery labelled 50-60 Hz with impunity.

Said Mr Jones: ‘Such equipment used on our existing power supplies suffer a whopping 16 per cent loss in efficiency in addition to other inherent losses of the supply system. One pertinent example: a four-pole motor labelled 50-60 Hz operation runs at a speed of 1,800 revolutions per minute [30 revs/sec] operated on a 60Hz supply.

“On our archaic 50Hz system it labours at a lousy 1,500 rev/min with a turns-ratio loss of 16 per cent. That loss represents a deficiency on the operation’s turnover; and that’s a permanent condition Jamaican manufacturers face under existing conditions.”

Jamaica is not awash in US dollars, but we have to fund our expensive oil import bill in US dollars. In addition to that, the old 50 Hz power generating plants being used by JPS are woefully inefficient and, as a result, we pay dearly for electricity in our monthly ‘light bills’.

On receiving the email from Mr Jones I rushed into my kitchen even though Mr Jones’ focus was mostly on manufacturers. My orange juicer was 60 Hz, the machine I use to mill my roasted coffee beans was 60 Hz, the vacuum cleaner in a locker was 60 Hz.

The washing machine was rated at 50-60 Hz.

The two standing fans used in bedrooms were both 50-60 Hz. To me this was scandalous. Why?

Knowing that Jamaica, with a population of less than three million, is almost unique in the Americas of over 950 million people in that we allowed, according to Mr Jones, “the 50Hz fallacy of colonial thinking”, to be foisted on us, I simply assumed that the motorised appliances I had been buying over all these years were strictly rated at 50 Hz. I felt totally ripped off, even knowing of the binding principle of caveat emptor, that is, ‘let the buyer beware’.

In practical terms, on every occasion that I used those appliances on a 50 Hz frequency-generating system as Jamaica is, they were doing about 16 per cent less work and certainly I could not pay JPS 84 per cent of the bill incurred by their use.

The JPS operates at 50 Hz, our importers and distributors sell us 50-60 Hz appliances and many rated at only 60 Hz. We have to run these appliances for extra time to get the optimal work required and we are forced to absorb this extra cost on our pockets because the JPS will accept nothing less than 100 per cent payment.

If it is that our manufacturing entities are saddled with motorised equipment made in industrialised countries in the Americas that are 60 Hz-equipped, while we in Jamaica operate on 50 Hz, and with all of the complaints of expensive electricity and inability to compete in the global marketplace because of this, why are they not also complaining about the 50 Hz/60 Hz anomaly?

Could it be that they have grown punch-drunk for so long that they simply accept as a given the inherent inefficiency from that aspect? Or could it be that even in the long run, it is cheaper to acquire a 50-60 Hz piece of machinery (and parts for maintenance) and run it inefficiently than to seek out machinery that strictly matches the 50 Hz specification but with no parts for maintenance?

If what Mr Jones says is true (and I have no reason to disbelieve him) and manufacturers are stuck with 50-60 Hz motorised equipment, I agree with him that the easier thing to do at this time while we are installing a sizeable chunk of generating capacity (360 Mw) would be to ensure that the entire JPS system makes the change to 60 Hz generation.

Addressing the new 360 MW capacity, Mr Jones said: “We have yet to be told of the frequency of operation (50 Hz or 60 Hz) and that seems to me to be of least importance to the OUR. I do not know of the qualification of the members, but if there are no practical electrical engineers among them concerned with efficiency and the delivery of a reasonably cheap source of the precious commodity, then we shall find ourselves in an incurable dilemma of square pegs in a round hole.”

OUR, knock, knock. Is anyone inside or awake?

Major contradictions in the Goat Islands plans

It seems to me that the real truth of the reasons why the Chinese have taken a Goat Islands-or-nothing-else demand is to be found more in what our officials are not telling us than in the obvious concoctions they are trying to sell us.

Investments, yes; developments, yes; speed in getting the plans to implementation stages, yes. It is, however, my belief that the reason that the entire matter is shrouded in such secrecy is because of a very open fact; that of Jamaica’s high crime rate.

The Chinese want the Goat Islands, not necessarily for a transshipment port but for some other development initiative that requires the least exposure of their nationals (whom they plan to export here) to the general population.

They will probably require the larger island for a medium-sized project and a smaller island for housing. According to Howard Chin, PE Mechanical, member of the Jamaica Institution of Engineers, “I suspect that the PNP Government will be granting the Chinese extraterritorial rights to the Goat Island port facilities. Said port facilities, as you can see from what I have written, is not optimal and does not have room to expand.”

A main concept of a logistics hub is to have transportation facilities (shipping, airlines, rail, road) in close proximity to manufacturing, warehousing, receiving, sorting and distribution outlets. Time in getting a product from point of manufacture to consumer is key. Everything else is secondary, although all must be closely linked to bring finality to the main objective.

Said Mr Chin: “I attended the Caribbean Maritime Institute + UWI presentations under the heading ‘The Logistics Hub: The Economy vs The Environment’ on Saturday, 9 November, and came away with the distinct impression that no other alternatives have been considered, or even that the backers of the Chinese proposal have considered some essential requirements.

“The concept of Jamaica becoming the fourth logistics hub of the world, as explained, is marvellous, and we engineers have recognised that based simply on our geographical location, we fit the bill to realise it. However, based on the requirements for a logistics hub, as expounded by the presenters, the fully developed hub would be up to 6,000 acres (1 acre = 0.40469 ha) in extent, with a transshipment port, airport, all tied into the road and railway system of Jamaica, and connected into the communications systems of the world.”

It is my understanding that the islands are barely 1,000 acres. Something just doesn’t make sense here.

We have been told that the Chinese had made demands of Goat Islands sometime in 2009 when the Jamaica Labour Party formed the Government, but then Prime Minister Bruce Golding and Transport and Works Minister Mike Henry insisted that there were alternatives. The Chinese froze their investment interest. When big money talks, ‘bruk pocket’, hungry country is forced to salivate and wait, and wait.

Mr Chin continues: “A large container port? The size of one hub allowed 32 million container moves per year as compared to the Port of Kingston with about three million moves per year. This suggests that the Port of Kingston is simply too small by about a factor of 10 to be in the logistics hub runnings, but with the expansion about to come on stream might be able to hold us until a larger facility elsewhere is realised.”

That facility certainly cannot be Goat Islands.

According to Mr Chin, “Steve Robinson, American global supply chain management expert, and Dr Eric Deans, chairman, Logistics and Investment Task Force, described the operations of logistics hubs, emphasising the speed of operation, for example, time from port to manufacturing facility to airport which could be measured in hours. The concept of ‘Jamaica time’ would not be acceptable.

“This would require that many of the hub facilities be beside each other. Indeed, photographs of exemplary hubs shown to us had the processing facilities backed right onto the port, including one with a seven-storey plant adjacent to port container storage. The statement by Dr Paul Robertson (I think), that the port should be on an island runs counter to this.”

Utilising the Goat Islands for a transshipment port just doesn’t seem to make any economic sense if the port will be one of the main cogs in the build-out of a logistics hub. Where is the space to build the allied facilities?

According to Mr Chin, “The close proximity of these facilities seems to be essential. The tentative (we were told) layout flashed on the screen showed the transshipment port miles away from the inland manufacturing (we were told) site. The intervening space included an expanse of sea from the islands to the mainland, then marshy lowlands which would be prone to flooding.

“So, a rail and at least a two-lane roadway bridge would be necessary across the waters and then flood-prone terrain. In the event of a hurricane, the port might become inoperative for an extended period of time if the road, power and rail bridge were to be damaged, unless it were to be completely self-contained, with a desalination plant, waste water plant and power plant, but those facilities would take up the clearly valuable port area on the islands.”

Increasingly it is appearing that the Chinese want the Goat Islands, but if they want it to build a transshipment port to feed into the other linkages that make up a logistics hub, it is making little or no sense.

Obviously our leading lights in the know are holding back something. They are not telling us the full story.

Investments, yes; development, yes; jobs, yes; less red tape, yes. So, how about the truth?

Something about this Goat Islands investment is not adding up.

What does Minister Phillips mean by labour market reform?

Who could fault our hard-working minister of finance Dr Peter Phillips for wanting to see all or most of our school leavers employed in a few months after high school or the completion of a university education?

Speaking at a labour market forum last Tuesday the minister said, “If we want to reverse the brain drain, if we want to improve our own conditions of life here in Jamaica that will retain our sons and daughters for national development, then we need to embark upon this labour reform process.”

I must confess that his statement had me stumped, but it was something that one expected from a politician. What exactly was he trying to convey? Was there a simpler way of saying what he wanted to convey?

As far as I am concerned, if we want to reverse the brain drain, and I see no chance of that happening anytime soon, if we want to retain our brightest, the thing to do while scouting for Foreign Direct Investments is to train our youngsters for the global marketplace.

I agree with Minister Phillips when he said that social stability would be threatened if about 50 per cent of school leavers remain outside of the workforce to add to the already high unemployment numbers.

In speaking of Parliamentary legislation the minister again lost me when he said, “Among the elements in the legislation is the Employment Tax Credit, which provides incentive to employers to utilise labour, by providing tax credits, available on the basis of your statutorily prescribed expenditures to support the labour force.”

Again, this is PhD speak, meaning that anything which can be simply said must be muddled and anything which must be said but which has no basis in fact, must be wrapped around fancy terminology.

Is the minister saying that the Government will be giving tax incentives to employers who add labour to the payroll?

Does the minister fully appreciate the reasons why people operate businesses? Only the biggest commercial entities can afford to stay in business while pumping added capital into it, growing it and waiting to turn a profit. Most others wither and die if the returns are not immediate.

Is the minister saying that if an employer is informed that a piece of machinery will make his operation 20 per cent more efficient but it will require the displacement of 10 workers, that employer is not acting in support of the labour force? In fact, since when have the vast majority of employers made it their business to support the labour force?

That is not the role of the employer in the capitalist mode of production.

Is the minister aware of the increase of the presence of robots on the production line? What this country ought to be doing is getting our universities out of the funk of social sciences and the humanities and increase the presence of youngsters studying math and the hard sciences.

We need youngsters who are at the cutting edge of the latest advances in areas like robotics and ICT. Most robots will last about four years until a new advancement is made. In those four years, the robots will not miss a day or have a baby. We need our youngsters to be building those robots.

Short of having massive numbers of new start-ups in business, there is the harsh truth that quite a lot of school leavers are poorly equipped to tackle the work environment, even though we are still at a primitive stage in our manufacturing activities. Many have no immediate capacity to add value to the workplace, but the minister cannot tell that simple but painful truth.

For (especially) our manufacturers to compete in the global export market, supporting the labour force is the least of their concerns. Quality product, speed of production and placing it on the shelf at a competitive price are the main objectives of the employer.

And if machinery or advanced robotics or specially skilled workers will assist him, he will opt for the cheaper, more efficient route.

If the minister wants companies to go on a social welfare binge like the previously planned but failed attempt to add 40,000 to the employment rolls by ‘moral suasion’, he should say so.

New start-ups, minister, and new, advanced skills. That is what we need to embark on urgently.

observemark@gmail.com

PHILLIPS… social stability will be threatened if about 50 per cent of school leavers remain outside of the workforce

Little Goat Island.

A section of the beach on Great Goat Island.