Dear Editor,

Wow! Wonders never cease. To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, there has been nothing like the prospect of an election hanging to wonderfully concentrate the minds of a sleepy, unfocused, misguided Opposition People’s National Party (PNP).

So, now, after four years in the political wilderness, Opposition leader Peter Phillips has finally realized that poorly paid Jamaican workers need a significant increase in the minimum wage which he now proposes to raise from $7,000 per week to $12,500. Bravo. What took this former Finance Minister and seasoned politician so long?

Of course, the Andrew Holness government and the assorted folks from the worlds of finance, economics, business and academia, who perennially publicly pontificate on these matters are no better.

They have not been able to figure out why, with all the paeans of praise from the IMF that the operation on Jamaica’s economy has been so successful, yet the patient has not recovered.

There is little or no growth in the economy — as has been the case for five decades under different governments, prime ministers and finance ministers.

The higgler on the sidewalk could have told them why. Vast numbers of consumers on a minimum wage of $7,000 can’t fuel growth, even with the help of remittances. They have no discretionary funds to spend — as the higgler might have told economist Ralston Hyman if he had asked: “nuh money nah run”.

Nor is the salvation for this lack of economic growth and promised “prasperity” going to be achieved by mere increased productivity, as the economic gurus never tire of telling us.

Increased productivity may indeed lead to increased profits but only in Economics 101 classes does this necessarily lead to increased wages. The reality of the Jamaican workplace is different. Such increased profits invariably fatten the bank accounts of the owners of capital.

But while the Opposition appear to have seen the light on the need for a significant minimum wage increase, there is only a glimmer of light on the crime front. Crime spokesman Fitz Jackson, while unable to let go of reliance of approaches such as community policing and social intervention, which have not stemmed the murder rate, now advocates “strengthening of a body of legislation to give certainty of punishment when perpetrators are apprehended and brought before the court.”

Of course, we have to convict them before we can punish them, Fitz; and there’s the rub. While his pronouncement sounds like a sliver of fresh thinking from the Opposition, it requires further and better particulars before any praise, or hope for better days, is merited. Especially as getting legislative changes to increase convictions past the solid wall of a lawyer-dominated PNP is likely to have the same result as asking a mongoose gang to protect the chicken coop. Believe success only when you see it.

Errol W A Townshend