Neither a man nor a crowd, nor a nation, can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear. — Bertrand Russell, mathematician, Nobel laureate

Two weeks ago I pointed out that the People’s National Party (PNP) was suffering with what I dubbed Jamaica House Withdrawal Syndrome. I neglected to point out the cause. In the good book, the Old Testament, in fact, speaks about the dangers of ‘dead dog complexes’, or what modern thinkers refer to as “stinking thinking”. That is the nucleus of the PNP’s stage four political cancer.

The PNP and its satellites — many of whom continue to masquerade as civil society advocates, trade union leaders, Bible aficionados and variant intellectual one-arm bandits — are desperately trying to blanket the country with fear.

While the Jamaica Umbrella Groups of Churches (JUGC) trumpets that there is “a darkness of evil over Jamaica”, with regards to crime in the country, the statistics from those whose job it is to track the crime figures are telling us quite the opposite. Maybe the members of the JUGC are not aware of these figures.

“There has been a 32 per cent reduction in serious and violent crimes for the period of January 1 to April 2, when compared to the same period last year, based on statistics released yesterday by the Statistics and Information Management Unit of the Jamaica Constabulary Force.

“The figures, however, showed that murder has been down by six per cent and shootings by eight per cent, the only two showing declines in single figures.

“Robberies are down by 33 per cent, while break-ins have seen a 46 per cent reduction within the mentioned period. Other violent crimes have also seen reductions across the board to include rape, which has been reduced by 39 per cent, larceny by 60 per cent, and aggravated assault by 36 per cent, cumulatively accounting for the 32 per cent reduction in serious and violent crimes.

“Two hundred and seventy-two murders have been reported to the police during the January 1 to April 2 period, compared to the 288 murders that took place during the same period in 2015.” (

Jamaica Observer, April 8, 2016)

I hope the ears of Reverend Gary Harriott, the general secretary for the JUGC, were not totally immersed in spiritual nirvana when this information was broadcast last week.

“Murders for the first four-and-a-half-months of this year are down by five per cent compared to the same period last year. Apart from shootings, all other major crimes have also declined.

“

Nationwide News has obtained the latest crime figures compiled by the statistics unit of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF).

“The figures reflect data for the period January 1 to May 14 this year.

“According to the statistics, there’ve been 409 murders recorded in the island this year, compared to 431 last year.”

“One hundred and seventy-seven incidents of rape have been recorded by the police up to May 14 this year compared to 255 for the same period last year.

“This represents a 31 per cent decline in incidents of rape. Aggravated assaults are also down by 25 per cent, while robberies have declined by 31 per cent.

“According to the JCF statistics, break-ins are down by 42 per cent, while cases of larceny have also declined by 54 per cent. However, the figures show that so far this year there has been a four per cent increase in shootings.” (

Nationwide News, May 16, 2016)

I did a thorough search but could not find a JUGC release similar to its Dark Vader composition of May 7, 2016, when this banner headline, ‘Jamaica homicides jump 20 pct, to highest level in 5 years’, dated January 6, 2016 was flashed across the globe by the respected

Associated Press, and broadcast by all major local media.

“Violent rivalries among Jamaica’s lottery scam rings have helped drive the Caribbean island’s homicide rate to the highest level in five years, according to police.

“The Jamaica Constabulary Force said the country had at least 1,192 slayings in 2015, a roughly 20 per cent increase from the previous year. There were 1,005 killings in 2014, the lowest annual total since 2003 in this country that has long struggled with violent crime.

“Jamaica had about 45 slayings per 100,000 people in 2015, keeping it ranked among the most violent countries in the world. In recent years, the United Nations listed the island as having the world’s sixth worst homicide rate. The World Bank ranked Jamaica in the top five in 2013.

“By comparison, Chicago, which has roughly the same population as Jamaica, at 2.7 million, had 468 killings in 2015.

“Last year’s total is a long way from National Security Minister Peter Bunting’s goal of reducing the annual homicide numbers to 320 killings by 2017. He first stated this goal shortly after starting as national security minister in early 2012.

“Bunting, who had called the reduction in 2014 a breakthrough in the fight against crime, said officials ‘will not be deterred or daunted by this setback’.

“Authorities attribute the rise in killings to clashes among lottery scam rings fighting over money and ‘lead lists’ containing identity information about targets living abroad, mostly in the United States.

“Fighting between gangs has long been blamed for the majority of Jamaica’s homicides.

“Herbert Gayle, an anthropologist of social violence at Jamaica’s University of the West Indies, said Wednesday that authorities have not addressed the root cause of violence in Jamaica so it was only a matter of time before killings ticked upward.

“While killings increased last year, other crimes, such as rape, aggravated assault, robberies and larcenies decreased.”

Maybe JUGC members were busy passing around communion trays and/or collection plates and did not see this story or know of the realities that informed it.

Doom and gloom rhetoric

The PNP does not seem to understand that their ‘sky is falling’ rhetoric has been neutralised by the information revolution.

Last week, Johnny-come-lately political contortionists and mimic men who populate the upper echelons of today’s PNP massively increased the rate at which they spewed gloom, doom and predicted famine upon the land. After the budget presentation by the Minister of Finance Audley Shaw, low-voltage thinkers in the PNP raced towards what they thought was blood in the waters.

Ex-finance minister, Dr Peter Phillips, mouthed that the Administration has presented a “sham budget”. According to Phillips, the budget was destined to hurt the poor, downtrodden and dispossessed. Apparently, the over 250 Jamaicans who will benefit from the Administration’s income tax relief are all rich people.

Phillips and his crew do not seem to understand that at the press of a button his credibility on matters of taxation and ‘love’ for the poor can be checked.

The contents of this article, ‘Jamaicans to pay tax on food items today’, might jog wayward memories, especially of those who suffer with convenient amnesia:

“Jamaicans will begin paying general consumption tax (GCT) on patties, raw food items, and other basic foods today, as parts of the Government’s recently announced tax package come into effect.

“Consumers will notice that the GCT rate of 16.5 per cent is now applicable to flavoured milk, some processed fish products, buns, crackers, biscuits, corned beef, rolled oats, and syrups.

“The new arrangement for GCT on electricity will also come into effect today.

“The tax will now apply to usage above 300 kilowatt hours up from 200 kilowatt hours, but the rate has been increased from 10 to 16.5 per cent.

“The Government is hoping the new measure will help it to meet a more than $19-billion revenue target to support the recently tabled budget.” (

The Gleaner, June 1, 2012)

The PNP is shouting about broken promises and smoke and mirrors. The great irony is that those in Michael Manley’s party are experts on giving the Jamaican people a “six for a nine”, as rural folks would put it.

I give two illustrations for good measure. Gordon Robinson in an article in the

Sunday Gleaner of March 15, 2015 said, among other things: “This pearl came from the lips of Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller at a PNP campaign rally in November 2011. Fist raised and flanked by party stalwarts, including Chairman-for-life Robert ‘Chicken Feed’ Pickersgill, she gloated that only the PNP would stop this torture by GCT of the Jamaican people. For the avoidance of all doubt, Mrs [Portia] Simpson Miller went on to emphasise that the removal of GCT from light bills would also be extended to the productive and business sectors in order to improve productivity and create more jobs.” This promise by the PNP is yet to be fulfilled.

Maybe those in the PNP who see streaks of the rainbow’s reflection and misinterpret them for blood might remember these broken pledges from the January 5, 2012 inaugural speech by former prime minister and sitting duck president of the PNP, Portia Simpson Miller:

“The mandate is a cry for us to restore hope. The mandate calls on us to protect the good name of Jamaica at home and in the eyes of the international community. Jamaica must remain, for all, a quality brand which gives citizens from all walks of life the opportunity to achieve their goals.

“The Jamaican people have sent a clear message. They want a more accountable and transparent Government which consults them; and they should expect nothing less.

“On my watch, I pledge that the rule of law will be paramount and we will serve with humility.

“On my watch, I pledge that we will honour the faith and trust of the Jamaican people.

“On my watch, I pledge that we will reject governmental extravagance and be vigilant in eliminating corruption.” (excerpt from Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller’s inaugural speech, January 5, 2012)

In Simpson Miller’s inaugural speech she also said, among other things:

“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.”

The PNP’s top brass got another body blow last week. Their antediluvian rhetoric of negativity sank like the

Titanic. Respected thinkers in academia, the private sector, public sector, and civil society repudiated their Jeremiah and Ananias and Sapphira cross-fertilisation of reality.

Head of the Department of Economics at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Dr Damien King — an economist in a real sense, unlike others frequently on radio — who three weeks ago said on

NewsTalk 93 FM that he was an economist, delivered an uppercut to the Anancy intellectualism of PNP spin doctors.

“Economist Damien King says that the Government’s presentation of the 2016/17 Budget yesterday has changed the conversation for economic growth in Jamaica.

“King, who a short while ago presented at the Victoria Mutual-led Post Budget Forum on the impact of the Budget on the four-year economic reform programme under the International Monetary Fund, highlighted that while the Government did not use any of the financing strategies presented in its 10-point post election plan, the path chosen will create ‘rock solid revenue’ for the country.

“ ‘Income tax is a very dangerous tax; it is arbitrary. But there has been a shift from income tax to a fairer tax with petrol and departure tax,’ King said.

“ ‘It’s easier to collect taxes from consumption… These are rock solid revenues, not hand-waving revenues that the ministers have tried to fool us with over the years,’ King told the audience at the Terra Nova Hotel.” (

Jamaica Observer, May 13, 2016)

Phillips seems to have forgotten that we remember that he levied $58 billion in new taxes on us during his four-year tenure. While the PNP pontificate about Jamaica disappearing like Atlantis, the Bank of Jamaica says the tax on gas will have a 0.2 per cent impact on inflation.

The PNP needs to realise that ‘dead dog’ complexes and stinking thinking will not take them back to Jamaica House.

Correction does much, but encouragement does more. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

PS: I read the piece by Paul Buchanan in last week’s Sunday Observer. I would have liked to compliment the writer, but in the words of Dr Samuel Johnson, British author and linguist: “I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.”

Garfield Higgins is an educator; journalist; and advisor to the minister of education, youth and information. Send comments to the Observer or higgins160@yahoo.com.