The theory of democratic government is not that the will of the people is always right, but rather that normal human beings of average intelligence will, if given a chance, learn the right and best course by bitter experience. — W E B Du Bois

RESPECTED Roman historian Cassius Dio wrote that on hearing the news that fire was about to engulf Rome, Emperor Nero who loved his theatricals just carried on oblivious, in full period costume, with his singing performance of the Sack of Ilium. Violins were not invented then, so it’s more likely that Nero was immersed in the strings of a lyre, which is more like a portable harp and is strummed like a modern-day guitar.

The fires that devastated much of Rome in AD 64 burned for five-and-a-half days. Ten of Rome’s 14 districts were severely damaged and for three districts the impact of the fire was so intense they were simply wiped out, destroyed by the heat, fumes, and flames and buried in mountain heaps of ash and charred remains.

While Rome burned, Nero fiddled.

The actions, or moreso inactions of Nero could as well be applied to the incompetent, irrational and, let me be kind here, miserable handling of our affairs by this Portia Simpson Miller Administration. I believe it is the worst since Independence, except for the Patterson regime. Michael Manley at least pioneered pieces of social legislation that have benefited ordinary Jamaicans. Patterson and his chief lieutenant Dr Omar Davies, then finance minister, watched as the financial infrastructure of this country was devastated. Davies’ scorched-earth economic policies could be said to have resulted in the folding of nearly 40 major financial institutions and nearly 45,000 small- and medium-sized companies. Many existed in Jamaica for decades before the category five economic hurricanes.

Jamaica must never forget. Undoubtedly, Davies was finance minister during the country’s worst times. There was 12 per cent [less than one per cent per year] economic growth over the 14 years while Davies was the chief handler of the national purse strings. During the turbulence of Davies and Patterson, the global economy was in boom and the vast majority of the countries in Latin America and the Caribbean achieved economic growth between three and five per cent on average. In 1971, just before ‘betta mus come’, the Jamaican economy grew by 12 per cent in a single year.

We must never forget. And we must never forget that the PNP have been in government for 21 of the last 25 years.

There are thousands of financial fires still burning in Jamaica because of the management of Emperor Patterson and Praetorian chief Omar Davies. Thousands of individuals and families have been financially ruined beyond repair. Some 20 Jamaicans are said to have committed suicide when the strain of their financial ruin became unbearable. Jamaica must never forget. Patterson and his Cabinet fiddled while Jamaica burned.

Prime Minister Simpson Miller has learned well, whether by political osmosis or natural processes of inheritance, she and this Administration are once again fiddling while Jamaica burns.

What is the health status of the Jamaican economy?

“The world is used to trailing behind Jamaican sprinters. The small island has won a string of world records, and may claim more at the 2012 Olympics. Its economy, however, is not so speedy: On current forecasts it will finish the year with the slowest average growth rate since 2000 in the Americas — behind even earthquake-stricken Haiti. On August 6 Jamaica will celebrate the 50th anniversary of its Independence. But the festivities will be muted by frustration with its performance.

“The Jamaican economy should by right be booming. The island is just a 90-minute flight away from the United States, the world’s biggest market, with which it shares a language. It is on the shipping route to the Panama Canal, and has a spacious natural harbour in Kingston. It is politically stable, without the ethnic tensions that have riven other Caribbean nations.

“However, the country’s economy was stagnant long before the credit crunch. In real terms, Jamaicans are no richer today than they were in the early 1970s. And most of the island’s enduring problems, like its public finances, are home-made.” (The Economist, July 2012)

Some misdirected, others with their snouts in the trough and many blinkered with rose-tinted spectacles might say, ‘Well, that was 2012, things have improved’. Improved how and for whom?

Poverty has increased. “Poverty increased to one-fifth of the Jamaican population, according to the just-released Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions 2012.” (Sunday Observer, November 30, 2014)

The sprinklings of international companies left in Jamaica are shipping back profits to their parent countries as fast as they are made locally.

“Foreign-owned companies repatriated a large portion of the US$104 million ($12b) that left the island as investment income or dividends in the September 2014 quarter.

“It represents the highest rise in outflows for the period, up more than 75 per cent year on year, according to the balance of payments accounts released by the Bank of Jamaica (BOJ) last week with an accompanying statement.

“‘There was an increase of US$51.3 million in the deficit on the income sub-account, mainly reflecting higher imputed profit repatriation by direct investment companies,’ stated the BOJ in its statement about investment income at US$104 million from US$58.8 million a year earlier.” (Jamaica Observer, January 15, 2015)

This Administration foolishly is relying on foreign direct investments, like the singular Chinese investment in the highway project and interest in the pie in the logistics hub, to marshal growth in GDP. It is axiomatic that small- and medium-sized businesses are the chief builders of local economies, not multinational firms. The loyalties of multinational companies are grounded primarily in raw profit motives and their interests in local economic development [note growth and development, though related, are different] are often transient at best.

Many local and foreign companies — irrespective of the latest Moody’s credit rating on Jamaica — must be having deadly heart palpitations. Why? The Y P Seaton matter and the length of time the matter has been in the courts: over 20 years. But what is even more chilling is the affidavit of the Financial Secretary Devon Rowe. It says, inter alia:

“If there is no stay of execution pending the hearing of this appeal and the Government is required to pay a sum in the region of $4 billion pursuant to that indemnity, there would be immediate, serious, negative fiscal consequences.

“An additional expenditure of $4 billion by the end of the fiscal year 2014/15 (that is, before March 2015) represents an unplanned expenditure in the amount of 0.25 per cent of GDP, and 1.3 per cent of currently budgeted central government non-debt expenditures for 2014/15.

“Further, expenditure ceilings in any one fiscal year are part of a set of multi-year, integrated macroeconomic programme targets, so that unplanned adjustments in any one year, which displaces planned expenditure, would also have to be reflected in subsequent programme years.”

Translation: If Government were to pay Y P Seaton, it would derail the IMF programme.

Will foreign companies in large numbers invest in a country where government can effectively refuse to honour a court ruling on the bases as set out in Rowe’s affidavit? This is frightening.

Equally frightening is the tardiness of the government in honouring judgements against it by hundreds of ordinary citizens. As recently as last Sunday, The Gleaner carried the horrendous story of a nurse who is now infected with HIV. The Government has accepted liability in the matter, but has given absolutely no assistance to the ailing citizen.

“Their excuse is that the volume of the amount we are asking for needs Cabinet approval.”

The parties have appeared in court on two occasions and, in both instances, the lawyers representing the State were not ready to go forward.

“I want to do a stem-cell procedure at this place in Montego Bay, and it is over $200,000 to do one of the treatments, and I have to do three.

“My lawyer asked them to pay a small part to me just to let me go ahead and they refused. And up to now, they are still not doing anything and I need to get out of the system and spend the rest of time I have with my kids before I go.” (Sunday Gleaner, February 22, 2015)

While Jamaica burns, the PNP fiddles

Up to the end of January 2014, 140 Jamaicans were awaiting payments from the Government on court judgements. (The Gleaner, March 21, 2014)

Among the 140 is doubtless the case of Roderick Cunningham. Cunningham was 31 years old when he was shot by a contingent of JCF/JDF personnel.

“He said while he was at the hospital… his hands were swabbed for gunpowder residue. He had surgery on May 17, 2000, and his right leg was amputated. He was subsequently arrested and charged with illegal possession of firearm, shooting with intent, and wounding with intent. He spent five days in hospital and was handcuffed to the bed while he was under police guard.

“On being discharged from hospital, he said he was locked up at the Elletson Road and Port Royal police stations for two weeks before being taken to the Gun Court on June 2, 2000.

“While in custody at the police stations, he said he was in severe pain because the leg was not healed and was not properly dressed. According to Cunningham, he had to hop into court as he had no crutches. He was granted bail on condition that he report to the police station every day, and did so for more than 1,000 times.” (Jamaica Observer, July 20, 2014)

The swab results proved that Cunningham did not fire a gun at the security forces. The court awarded him $3.5 million of a currency worth less than half of a US cent. While the attorney general has accepted that there was no reasonable and probable cause to prosecute Cunningham, they have challenged the quantum of the award.

Are these realities magnets for foreign and local investors? While Jamaica burns, the PNP fiddles.

Last Sunday’s Observer front page screamed ‘NHT in hiding’. Months after this newspaper requested minutes of board meetings for the period January 2012 to November 10, 2014 dealing with the Outameni affair, consistent with the Access to Information Act, the minutes are yet to be supplied. Easton Douglas, NHT chairman, who should have resigned like several other board members, said: “We assure you we are working assiduously to complete your information request.”

Is this reality a magnet for foreign and local investors? While Jamaica burns, the PNP fiddles.

Hundreds of Jamaicans still walk with the rocking-chair effect of CHIKV. An undetermined number are gone to their maker. Dr Fenton Ferguson said in a national broadcast that the Government knew about the arrival of CHIKV on our shores two years in advance of its landing. What did he do in preparation? Nothing! Our economy has already lost $7 billion and 13-million man-hours of production as a consequence of this Administration’s negligence. Dr Ferguson remains minister of health.

Is this reality a magnet for foreign and local investors? While Jamaica burns, the PNP fiddles.

“Jamaica’s high energy costs and poor infrastructure ranked the island 97th globally or worse than civil war-torn Syria, according to the Global Energy Architecture Performance Index Report 2015 published last December by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with Accenture Strategy.”

Is this reality a magnet for foreign and local investors? While Jamaica burns, the PNP fiddles.

In her inaugural speech on January 5, 2012, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller said: “My Administration will not engage in a blame game. We will present the facts to the Jamaican people based on rigorous analysis. Our approach must be to right the wrongs and insist on accountability. Let us learn from our past, absorb the lessons, and go forward. We only need to look back to confirm where we are coming from and to correct our errors and weaknesses as we look to the future. That is the way of progress.

“The mandate which Jamaicans gave the People’s National Party on December 29 is a call to action. It is a signal from our people that we, the Government, must earn their trust. It also gives us the opportunity to ease the burdens and the pressures of increasing poverty, joblessness, and a deteriorating standard of living.”

However, when Phillip Paulwell, the veritable minister of announcements and broken promises, bungled the 380-megawatt project, his most recent demonstration of rank incompetence, the prime minister said: “Let me make it quite clear, I have a minister of energy in place. Unless he does something wrong that would affect and impact the Jamaican people in a serious way and the Government of Jamaica [he will not be fired],” in responding to a question from Opposition Leader Andrew Holness. (Jamaica Observer, June 4, 2014)

Is this reality a magnet for foreign and local investors? While Jamaica burns the PNP fiddles.

Two weeks ago, the financials and personal/private information, such as TRN, home address, etc, could be accessed on the government website of the National Security Interests Registry simply by typing in the name of a Jamaican citizen.

The Minister of Industry and Commerce Anthony Hylton — a political pachycephalosaurus [a strange breed of dinosaur that evolved two million years before extinction] — instead of taking responsibility, said: “It was Permanent Secretary Vivian Brown and not him who signed off on the implementation of the search registry.” (The Gleaner, February 19, 2015)

The new defence for incompetence in this Administration is ‘It wasn’t me’. Where does the buck stop, Minister? Hylton still has his job.

Murders are up nearly 37 per cent over last year. In New York State, no murders were reported in 11 straight days up to February 13, 2015. (Jamaica Observer, February 13, 2015)

The Jamaican economy is once again in recession — two consecutive quarters of decline in GDP. After the announcement last Tuesday by head of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ), some PNP operatives took to the airwaves to cast blame on the local private sector as the scapegoat. They say this Administration has given the private sector the tools to produce and prosper. That’s equivalent to what George Bush, former US president, called fuzzy mathematics.

While the PIOJ says drought in December is the real culprit, I beg to add that it is more than drought why the economy is at a standstill. Jamaica’s economy is broken and this Administration cannot fix it because they don’t know how. Twenty-one of the last 25 years have proved that beyond question.

Is this reality a magnet for foreign and local investors? While Jamaica burns, the PNP fiddles.

The government ought not to be invested with power to control the affections any more than the consciences of citizens. — Lydia Maria

Garfield Higgins in an educator and journalist. Comments to higgins160@yahoo.com