The year 2020 is halfway done and it has been a year of many “plagues”. In Jamaica we have seen COVID-19, Sahara dust, JPS light bill saga…and I should add corruption allegation “entanglements”, affecting both sides of Parliament.

Many are saying that they can’t wait for 2020 to be over, which ironically means that they are rushing the time closer to when we all must go. But this is what a bad year can do to you, as you focus on the immediate concern and forget that what you wish for could actually cause you greater harm than your current situation.

From early in the pandemic one of my main concerns was the ease with which people were saying to lock down everything, and not consider the long-term economic and social impact. This irrationality, for me, was even more pronounced when one considers that a virus usually is around for a long time before we are able to find an effective and safe vaccine.

I mean people were calling for Jamaica to lock down for three and more months, not considering the devastation it would cause on economic and social life. If this were to happen, the effects would have been beyond significant, as we would see the Government not only having budgetary constraints when it comes to paying doctors (as was reported recently), but also not being able to pay the security forces, nurses, teachers, and — my favourite — garbage collectors.

I am happy the Government did not take that advice, and instead chose to keep the economy open, with temporary closures of some parts, as the consequences would have been horrendous.

On April 15, I wrote a piece looking at the ‘Possible economic impact of COVID-19 on Jamaica’. In that article I estimated that (i) Jamaica could make a return to seek assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), (ii) Unemployment could end up at between 19.71 and 24.33 per cent, and (iii) Real GDP for 2020 could fall anywhere between two and 15 per cent, depending on the response to the virus, with my expectation being that it wiould be closer to 10 per cent, after seeing the effects of the St Catherine lockdown.

Bear in mind that for the period 1972 to 1980, the economy declined a total of around two per cent, so a 10 per cent decline in one year is significant. Even more significant for me is that the measures that have had to be taken to restrict movement will see a much greater impact on small businesses and middle-class clerical jobs, which are going to be hard to replace. This is why the work being done by the Economic Recovery Task Force is crucial, and I hope it does not fall to the same fate many other reports that are heaped on a pile and start to get eaten by termites.

So I don’t think people understand why it is necessary for the Government to take the risk of opening our borders to tourists (with the measures in place) and slowly bring back entertainment events and open community bars. The fact is that the informal economy in Jamaica provides income for a large amount of people who have children to feed and live “hand to mouth”.

As long as the virus is around for a year or more, everyone must inevitably end up with a version of the Swedish model, as the reality is that governments cannot maintain social support and law and order without economic activity taking place.

We must remember that economic output is as a result of social and economic activity and if people are at home then there is no income for barbers, hairdressers, restaurants, bars, stores and eventually large businesses. That means that Government will not get any tax revenue, and if they don’t they can’t pay teachers, nurses and police and we will end up in the “Wild, Wild West”.

ELECTION IMPACT

With all of that said on the economic impact and the implied recession (which could be for a while), we are now once again in the election cycle and feeling the impact of the normal “he said, she said” from both sides, which is understandable as that is how the game of politics is played.

With the allegations of corruption being thrown around, it is obvious that this is a distraction to the economic and social recovery focus needed at this time of the pandemic, and my hope is that we will hear the announcement of the election date and we will have this behind us soon. We need stability now and all eyes focused in one direction if we are to mitigate against the downside of the COVID virus.

On the allegations of corruption, that we are seeing come fast and furious, a few years ago I made the point that if we want to see an improvement in the corruption perception index, and overall governance, we must appoint independent and qualified people to public sector boards.

The fact is that even if a minister wants to carry out an act of corruption, or do something unethical, it cannot happen without the complicity of the public bodies as they are the ones that operationalise policy. Policy is useless without action, which is what the public bodies are charged with.

So the big question for me is, what is happening with the roll out of the Corporate Governance framework for Public Sector bodies and the Competency Framework qualifying people to sit on public boards?

Without these we will have to depend on bodies such as the Integrity Commission (IC), Auditor General Department (AGD), and civil society. But by the time that they would have reported on any wrongdoing, the donkey (in COVID time we have downgraded from a horse) would have already bolted.

I also want to say that it is unfortunate that the error was made in the Petrojam report by the IC, as this will no doubt affect the credibility of future reports, and so it is important that reports coming from bodies like the IC and AGD, must be checked and double checked before being released. I, however, support the call by the National Integrity Action (NIA) for the IC to review public bodies with outstanding annual reports, as this is the primary way we can tell about the operations.

THE MANLEY DEBATE

Finally, I want to comment on what I term “The Manley Debate”, as I see some criticising the former PM and others coming to his defence strongly, with both parties even at the point of “verbal violence”, which I am sure Manley would not sanction, as he seemed to genuinely care about people.

My own view is that Manley did some good things that we cannot discount, as he brought about a social revolution. Through his policies, many Jamaicans came to prominence, and got an opportunity they would not have had before.

I was between prep and high school, during the 70s, and was old enough to understand what was happening.

I remember the 1976 state of emergency and the 1980 election violence vividly. I remember the fear that was gripping the nation because of the violence, and the rhetoric surrounding the different ideologies of the time. I remember clearly the “five flights a day” comment and the rationing and marrying of items at the supermarket.

I remember the frequent power outages and Jamaica being unable to pay for oil imports on many occasions. Personally, for me, I remember driving around with my father one night in 1979 trying to get medication I needed, and not being able to get it as it was out of stock in all pharmacies. We had to get it from the personal supply of my paediatrician at the time, Dr Robert Grey.

So for me the 70s were real.

Also, we all know as a fact that the 1970s saw the most prolonged economic decline in Jamaica’s history and was the start of the decline of labour productivity, which I have always maintained is the biggest economic challenge we continue to face.

But, I also recall the way in which Jamaicans became more confident and again personally for me I was a beneficiary of the “free education” policy. My father did try to send us to the best schools, certainly at prep level, but if it wasn’t for the policies that were put in place would I have been able to go to Jamaica College or The University of the West Indies (UWI), where I not only did my bachelor’s but also my master’s degree?

I always tell the story about my third year, in my first degree, where a cess was introduced by the then Seaga Government, and us UWI students shut down the campus and marched on the Ministry of Finance and JBC at the time. The cess was eventually reduced by two-thirds for that year, and I wonder how many people after that would have excelled if they had the opportunity to do so, as I did.

When I went on to do my master’s degree right after, the total cost to me was $265.

We have also seen the argument of both sides (reversed) when they talk about Seaga, who I think made significant contributions to the development of Jamaica.

Both Manley and Seaga (arch-rivals at one time) made mammoth contributions to the country, but if we are honest, both made mistakes, as was said by Manley after.

Taking a line from Ernie Smith’s song, One Dream, I have always maintained that if we had one person with the attributes of both Manley and Seaga that may be to our advantage.

What is more interesting to me is that 39 years after the 70s, and 29 years after the 80s (when Seaga was PM), these men continue to impact our minds — even though enough time has passed to turn around any negative impact if we were really serious.

Dennis Chung is the author of Charting Jamaica’s Economic and Social Development AND Achieving Life’s Equilibrium. His blog is dcjottings.blogspot.com.

Email: drachung@gmail.com