AUBYN Hill, the beleaguered chairman of the recently formed Economic Advisory Council (EAC) of the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), volunteered in a column in the Financial Gleaner of January 9, 2015, without the benefit of empirical data, the notion that, with a few exceptions, local private sector investors are reluctant to invest in Jamaica on account of a lack of confidence in the economic policies and programmes of the Government, which, in his opinion, are a distinct disincentive to every private sector engine in need of fuel to function.

Against the background of heightened election rhetoric from within the Opposition ranks, it is safe to assume that this message will form a major plank in the JLP’s campaign to recapture Jamaica House.

It will seek to savage the People’s National Party as anti-business and anti-private sector, while praising its own record on the economy. It will concede nothing on the economic front to the Portia Simpson Miller-led Administration.

As the editorial in the Sunday Gleaner of January 25 correctly observed: “The JLP’s response to the Government’s (economic) programme…has been to snipe at the International Monetary Fund and other multilateral agencies with which Jamaica has programmes.”

But while Aubyn Hill and the JLP believe that Jamaica’s true potential lies in its past, and that the strong decisive leadership of the Government in attacking problems of economic growth and social well-being deserves to be treated contentiously, it is legitimate — given that the country is not a bazaar, a private family firm, nor a single constituency — to debate the question: Which private sector does the party have in its sights as being “wary of investing locally” in today’s Jamaica?

This is a serious question deserving of serious consideration, for we are dealing, after all, with politics, not just economics. And, the last time I checked, the issue in question loomed large on the Jamaican social landscape where people still constitute the measure of all the phenomena with which politicians must grapple.

The JLP’s legitimacy, therefore, in any debate about the performance of the private sector in Jamaica at present, and by extension the economy, must be derived from their authority of expertise, impartiality, objectivity, representativeness, and transparency of ideals.

But it seems to me that the party’s misrepresentation — as expressed by its EAC chairman — of the potential of the private sector to contribute to the nation’s growth agenda by its unwillingness to invest in the economy, is shaped to fit an ideological template forever blaming the PNP of “economic mismanagement”.

For there is very little doubt that significant sections of the private sector in today’s Jamaica feel upbeat about the current Administration’s gradual approach — albeit under an IMF-supported programme — to moving the economy in the direction of growth and in ambience which spells confidence and hope.

The consistency, for example, with which the Administration, led by the policy leadership of Peter Phillips in his capacity as minister of finance, has pursued its goals in its journey on a road admittedly different from any it took in the past, is admired by those who sensibly believe in the dynamic force of private initiative, in all forms, in the serious business of the production of goods and services in Jamaica. This implies acceptance of the enabling environment being created in the economy, where any serious member of the private sector, large or small, can reinvent themselves with the only limitation being their own intelligence and drive.

The Economic Reform Programme (ERP), after all — anchored in what is perhaps the most dynamic legislative and regulatory framework environment in post-Independence Jamaica — has resulted, to date, in a most robust, if necessarily painful, debt-reduction programme. It has also nurtured a promising growth agenda, despite evidence of underspending and shortage of revenue intake, modest employment creation, enhanced transparency within the economy, a rise in consumer confidence during the October to December 2014 quarter to 110 points (the highest level since the corresponding period in 2012), and an upward trend in the business confidence index to 122.9 points for the same period (up from 112.1 in the July to September quarter of 2014).

This, in large measure, is the background against which Wayne Chen — younger brother of billionaire Michael Lee-Chin, respected businessman and former public servant — delivered his constructive encomium on the Government’s economic programme two Tuesdays ago at the Jamaica Employers’ Federation’s (JEF) first networking breakfast meeting of private and public sector representatives for 2015, held at the Knutsford Court Hotel in Kingston.

Speaking on behalf of the private sector interests he represents, Chen gave the impression that he understands the obligations private sector players in the economy now have towards the national growth agenda. A seeming underlying sanity informed his speech as if to signal to Simpson Miller’s Cabinet the support of JEF for her Administration’s gallant, necessarily painstaking, and non-populist attempt to bring order and fiscal discipline to an otherwise unruly economy.

The Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) and the Small Business Association of Jamaica (SBAJ) share similar sentiments to Wayne Chen’s. By their support for the Government’s ERP, they have signalled to the wider society a strong belief that the invocation of hope over despair makes eminent sense at this time in the country’s post-Independence history.

They believe, in essence, that there is nothing to beat the psychological release of a people from despondency and cynicism, guaranteeing to them the reassurance that they too can be the creators of their own destiny.

What is more, like Jacqueline Sharp, president and CEO of Scotia Group Jamaica Limited, and Bruce Bowen, Scotiabank senior vice-president for English Caribbean international banking, they have expressed optimism and confidence in the economic recovery and growth strategy of the Government as the necessary groundwork for private sector investment, sustained economic stability, and growth over the medium to long term, and the liberation of the society and the mass of the people from penury.

Says Hugh Johnson, president of the SBAJ: “Even though we have not seen (or felt) the benefits on the ground yet…it is for the business sector now to get our act together, as it relates to doing business…in order to capitalise on the established structures that are there (to facilitate growth).”

For his part, the PSOJ President William Mahfood points to the “tremendous” volume of investments in the economy which the private sector has made in the last 18 months, noting that: “There are still companies on the sidelines, which have been waiting for stability (in the economy), and I advise them that now is the time (to invest) as never, I think, in the future will we see an opportunity like now, to invest in the country.”

The language is clear enough; the private sector has confidence in the prevailing economic policies and programmes of the Government and is committed to private initiative and investment.

Some 150 local and overseas investors are heading to Montego Bay in a month’s time to participate in the second staging of the Jamaica Investment Forum. The last one held in 2012 netted some US$500 million in foreign investment projects, and within the last few years foreign direct investment inflow into Jamaica moved from US$211 million in 2011 to more than US$561 million in 2013.

These are times that try men’s souls. Yet, we must forever try to make sense of the new global order, or absence thereof. Our struggle with the IMF, debt, increasing immiseration, high prices, the lot, are not dissimilar to a rich country’s struggle to cope with problems of growth, the environment, public health, etc. And, in all of this, solutions will vary.

But the one thing those in and out of power in this country must never do is to fail to learn that the options open to poor, developing countries like Jamaica for their self-directed path to growth and development are limited.

In this regard, can misrepresenting the goal of the private sector guarantee to the mass of the population growth and development? You decide.