Don’t ignore the coconuts, for mangoes are seasonal. — Bantu/Kalenjin proverb, Tanzania/Kenya

The just-concluded 81st annual conference of the People’s National Party (PNP) featured ‘the good, the bad, and the ugly’. The good was slightly encouraging. The bad was repulsive. The ugly was objectionable.

Dr Phillips might have wowed the base of his party, but little else. I gather Phillips has a PhD in political science, or a related discipline. I assume, therefore, that he must know that ‘wowing’ the base alone will not cure the PNP of its advanced Jamaica House Withdrawal Syndrome. I believe Phillips wasted a golden opportunity last Sunday to genuinely impress the country with operational specifics and related timelines for the few good ideas which he presented at last year’s annual conference. Instead, he reiterated a scary proclivity for socialists and launched into a frenzy of promises situated in the redistribution of income, minus any reference to increased production to pay for them.

1989 cess promise revised

Dr Phillips has promised that, “The next PNP Government will guarantee that the first child in every family that qualifies for university will get a full scholarship from a Government of the People’s National Party.” ( The Gleaner, September 23, 2019) Sounds good, but what are the operational specifics of this plan? A year after Phillips formally made this promise the PNP is yet to provide the country with details on how it will be structured in a workable way, given the peculiarities of our family systems. Even more, how will it be funded? Mum’s the word.

Folks are not going to accept pie-in-the-sky promises, Dr Phillips, especially given the three-card trick that former Prime Minister Michael Manley played on the tertiary sector in the run-up to the 1989 General Election. At a rally in Half-Way-Tree Square some weeks before the general election, Manley said: “God will judge me if I did not remove the cess on university education.” Months after the PNP won, and huge pressure was rightfully piled upon the Manley Administration to fulfil its solemn promise, he broke the lamp of hope for hundreds of university students. Manley told the country that the economy was not in a state to effectuate the promise. Hundreds of university students who were lured by a false promise are today mature voters, who doubtless remember the PNP’s sting of deception.

I think, Manley knew while he was in Opposition that he would not have been able to remove the cess. But the PNP believes it is the party of natural choice. Hence, the sordid 1976 State of Emergency as well as the ‘Pickersgillian’ dictum: “We believe it is best for us to form the Government; therefore, anything that will lead us or cause us to be in power is best for the PNP and best for the country.”

Phillips said, last Sunday, that his promises are “not just chat”. Well, they are, Dr Phillips, until you can convincingly demonstrate how they will be afforded and equitably operationalised; empty chat.

I believe a highly credible organisation like the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CAPRI) should do a comprehensive costing of Phillips’s promises and let the country know whether our national purse can/will be able to afford them. We cannot afford, as a nation, to get caught doing the same thing over and over and expect different results.

Get the basics right

Phillips says a future PNP Administration led by him will ensure a total transformation of our education system. Wonderful! He said increased emphasis will be placed on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics): “We have to make a special effort to drive science and technology and place new subjects like robotics, animation, coding, and app development at the centre of education, Phillips said.” ( The Gleaner, September 23, 2019. Great! But there is a foundation hurdle which we will need to successfully surmount before real — not tinkering — transformation can begin to take place.

Dr Damien King, executive director of CAPRI and former head of the Department of Economics at The University of the West Indies, Mona, succinctly noted it on twitter, last Monday: “Actually, only around 20 per cent of a first-form cohort ends up passing CSEC (Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate) math. Robotics, coding, and app development don’t stand a chance. We have to deal with basic math education first before we can get frothy.”

Dr King’s views, in this instance, might have come across to some as unpalatable; nonetheless, he has stated a fact. We need to focus on the basics and get those right, first.

How do we begin to do this? I humbly suggest that students who are promoted from the early childhood to the primary, then to the secondary school system, must be able to read, write, calculate, and think with facility.

How do we start out along this journey? I suggest we begin to employ the applicable aspects of the theory and practice of Lee Kuan Yew, the man who transformed a “poor malarial island” — as one Westerner said some time ago of Singapore — into a developed country in 35 five years.

The late Singaporean leader famously, said: “Use what works.” In 2018, Singapore was ranked number one by the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which evaluates educational systems by measuring 15-year-old school pupils’ scholastic performance in mathematics, science, and reading skills. In the 60s, Singapore’s population was largely uneducated.

Study after study, for example, has shown that the most important ingredient in fostering a child’s learning is a quality teacher. Who is a quality teacher? Well, for me, a quality teacher is one who has a comprehensive knowledge of his craft. He/she is able to communicate his craft with consummate ease. He/she is involved in constant professional training and development. He/she is a good example of culturally relevant values and attitudes. We need to focus on populating our entire education system with quality teachers. Countries like Singapore, Sweden, Finland, and others have transformed their education system with this approach and other revolutionary changes.

As I wrote five Sundays ago in this space: “Finland, for example, developed a national curriculum. Master’s degrees for all teachers became mandatory. Finnish teachers are drawn from the top 10 per cent of college graduates. Their performance on the job is carefully measured, and they are paid very well. Today the average student in the Finnish education system speaks four languages; English included. Parental involvement is one of the strongest in the world, and experts in Finnish education say they have a culture which places a premium on educational achievement.”

Here is an unpopular opinion: The majority of students who enter our teachers’ colleges are not the best and brightest. We need to make a 180-degree turn here. Luckily, we don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Numerous successful models exist which we can be tailored to our peculiar needs. We need a revolution — not tinkering, but a complete change in the social order — in how our teachers are trained and compensated. Models exist for how this can be done. I am not recommending that we ape these models; we must tailor to our needs.

I believe another great stumbling block to the successful transformation of our education system is a powerful group of antediluvian thinker, actors/actresses, who consciously and in subliminal ways protect deep-rooted systemic structures which preserve colonial differences. Their ‘thing’ is tinkering and trinketry to save face. Revolution means a complete shift in the social order.

But back to Dr Phillips and his trailer load of promises.

More empty chat

Phillips has solemnly promised that were the PNP to win the next general election he would revamp the National Housing Trust (NHT) to ensure that everyone who contributes realises a benefit. This sounds good! My bad, it sounds great! But is the NHT resourced to enable the guaranteed implementation of the Phillips plan? And, if yes, over what period, meaning 5, 10, 15, 20 years?

Dr Phillips says, “Judge me on my record of what I have done in all the areas in which I have served.” Good idea! Phillips was finance minister and de facto prime minister when there was a $44-billion drawdown from the NHT. I recollect that he was jointly in command of the Administration when the Outameni scandal hit this country like a bomb.

Recall this news item, Dr Phillips? “The National Housing Trust (NHT) has not been able to find a taker for the Orange Grove/Outameni property in Trelawny, which it purchased for $180 million three years ago from a private entity.

“Chairman of the NHT board Dr Carlton Davis told the Jamaica Observer’s Monday Exchange yesterday that the agency has been trying for months to lease the seven-acre property, and had even sent out feelers to the tourism sector and the Urban Development Corporation, but no prospects have turned up.

“ ‘Our first option was to see if anybody was interested, [but] so far nobody,’ he said, adding that the trust was still hoping to lease or sell the property ‘on terms that somebody may find it attractive to do some business and take off our hands the cost of security and maintenance, and create some economic activity’.

“The NHT now spends some $900,000 per month to maintain the property which it bought from Orange Valley Holdings Limited (OVHL) in 2012. The purchase has been steeped in controversy since news of the deal became public in 2013.” ( Jamaica Observer, November 17, 2015)

Consider this! Citizens in Fog City, in his constituency of St Andrew East Central, have lived in squalor for donkey’s years because of lack of decent housing and other basic amenities. Phillips has been the Member of Parliament since 1994.

Headline: ‘Filthy Frog City — Small community off Maxfield Avenue faces acute health risk’ ( The Gleaner, April 22, 2012)

“The offensive smell of faeces hung like a thick dark cloud over the Corporate Area community residents call Frog City, but which could easily be called ‘Filth City’. The community, located off Maxfield and Chisholm avenues, is correctly known as Ricketts Crescent, but for anyone familiar with the area it is Frog City.

“When our news team visited the area recently, the offensive smell was everywhere, and so were the black scandal bags in which full or half loads of faeces had been tossed close to the playing field of Norman Manley High School and into makeshift garbage pits, garbage heaps, or the open areas in sections of the community.

“Running water is scarce and sometimes non-existent in the inner-city community.

“Public toilet and bathroom facilities constructed about a decade ago to offer some dignity to the men, women and children are no longer usable after they were vandalised.

“Flies, people and animals commingle in a maze of nastiness. When the wind blows, the residue of filth is felt all over your body, including in your mouth.

“Flies quickly move from the mounds of filth to the mouths of adults and young babies.

“Last Thursday, the Kingston and St Andrew Health Department disclosed that communities in the Hagley Park and Waltham Park areas were heavily infested with deadly disease-carrying rats.”

Well, you might say surely Dr Phillips would have eased the burdens of his constituents . You are wrong!

This was a banner headline in the Old Lady on North Street near five year later: ‘Frog City fed up! — Residents losing hope following 14-year wait’ ( The Gleaner, January 15, 2017)

It took this Andrew Holness-led Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Administration to come to the rescue of Phillips’s constituents. And, please, don’t tell me about “it was all in the pipeline”. Nonsense! Administrations must be judged on what they successfully implement, what they do, not what they say they plan or believe they can do.

Dr Phillips evidently could not rescue the people of Frog City in his constituency, so why should the country believe he can rescue it?

Jamaica’s #1 problem?

Phillips reiterated last Sunday that he plans to end squatting and landlessness in Jamaica. Sounds beautiful! But how will this be done? Land is a finite resource. Will every landless citizen be given a piece of land? How much? What method of redistribution will be applied? Remember the infamous Land Lease and Nyerere Farms fiascos of the 70s? Once bitten, twice shy is a local adage which rings with significance here.

The PNP formed the Government in 23 of the last 30 years with Phillips holding senior positions in the Government, why did he not solve what he says is Jamaica’s number one problem?

Dr Phillips joined the PNP in 1989 and became a Member of Parliament in 1994. ( Jamaica Observer, March 6, 2017) Since 1989 he has held a series of high-level posts in the PNP. Between 1995 and 1997 Phillips was the minister of health. He was transport and works minister from 1998 to October 2001. And from 2011 to February 25, 2016 he was minister of finance and de facto prime minister. Why did he not prevail upon his colleagues to solve what he says is “at the heart of Jamaica’s problems”?

I believe Phillips’s bag of promises should be treated not with a pinch, but with a pound of salt.

The PNP has been an abysmal failure at successfully implementing it promises. What has changed?

NB: I will examine “the ugly” from the 81st annual conference of the PNP next week.

Garfield Higgins is an educator and journalist. Send comments to the Observer or higgins160@yahoo.com.