He who does not seize opportunity today will be unable to seize tomorrow’s opportunity. — Cibraan proverb, Somalia

“I have been saying since I was mayor of Kingston that the law protects wrongdoers. Some 6,000 illegal structures have been built across the island over the last three years,” Minister of Local Government and Rural Development Desmond McKenzie made this very eye-opening acknowledgement on a radio programme last Monday.

Intermittent, but heavy rains have pelted the island for the last seven weeks. These downpours have further weakened our physical, social, and economic infrastructures. Notwithstanding these realities, we must not miss the significance of McKenzie’s forthright admission. To me, it is a reminder that we are moving forward by mere inches when great leaps are urgently needed.

Doubtless, the construction of illegal structures was a major contributor to the massive flooding which culminated in the near crippling of economic and numerous types of critical activities throughout the country last Sunday, but our problems are bigger.

Going around in circles

Every time we have major flooding in Jamaica — much of it preventable — public officials reel off formulaic palliatives about improved flood mitigation, public education, and modernisation of our urban and public planning legislations. Then the sun rises — as it always does — the waters recede, and, like clockwork, we sink back into predictable and stale routines; namely, turning a blind eye to the flames which have engulfed the house in which we live. This is madness!

We need to graduate well beyond the platform talk, well-choreographed sound bites, and double speak. We have been teetering on the brink of social and physical infrastructure disaster for decades.

The estimated $2 billion and counting in damage caused by the latest flood rains is another opportunity for us to hasten the necessary paradigm shifts that will redound to the benefit of Jamaicans — not for next month or next year, but for another 25 to 50 years from today.

I think the Andrew Holness-led Administration should be careful to seize the moment. It is time for action!

We cannot continue to go around in circles.

We cannot continue to lose thousands of precious production hours.

We cannot continue to make two steps forwards and five steps backwards.

We cannot continue to do the same thing over and over and expect different results.

The massive dislocation in basic services, such as water and electricity, in the aftermath of the torrential rains last Sunday cannot be the only game in town.

No well-thinking Jamaican can feel happy that significant portions of the country were without electricity and water for most of last Sunday and Monday.

Last Wednesday, one traditional media outlet reported that some 3,000 Jamaica Public Service (JPS) customers were still without electricity. Minister McKenzie reported that, “80 per cent of our roads” were severely impacted by last Sunday’s downpour. This must raise dozens of red flags. Something smells rotten.

Admittedly, seven weeks of heavy rains will injure and overpower even the most robust electricity, water, road, and related infrastructure systems. That does not mean, however, that we should continue to relax on our hunches and not begin to quickly implement the transformative infrastructural and related changes which are needed to move us out of the weak column on infrastructure.

Implementation matters!

We are famous for big launches and announcements, but woefully short on implementation.

I have stopped counting the number of times I have heard about major overhaul of the island’s drain network being just around the corner. I have stopped counting the number of times I have heard that road construction will be tightly monitored to ensure that adequate drains are put in. Those whose job it is to help plan, execute, and supervise infrastructural development must be held to book when they fall down on their designated mandates.

Consider this: ‘Major road projects, but no major drainage work — Hunter’. The news item said, among other things: “The National Works Agency (NWA) is blaming Jamaica’s decades-old drainage problem for flooding and subsequent damage to roadways across the island after heavy rainfall.

“ ‘NWA Executive Director E G Hunter told The Gleaner that a master drainage study was commissioned years ago for the entire country, and stakeholders were now considering how to go about implementing a fix.

“ ‘[It] identified that the drain cleaning across the island would cost US$1 billion. So that plan exists. When anyone talks about where is the plan, there is a plan, but how do we implement that plan [and what’s the] rate of implementation?’ he said yesterday.” ( The Gleaner, October 16, 2020)

With all due respect to E G Hunter, utterances about master plans, servant plans, and plan about plans, don’t count. What folks want is efficient implementation which positively impact their pockets and dinner tables. Folks are also sick and tired of the outdated blame game involving the NWA, National Water Commission (NWC), JPS, and the telecoms.

According to the mentioned The Gleaner story, “He [E G Hunter] said that some of the road issues were was not caused by rainfall, but by damaged National Water Commission (NWC) pipes.

“ ‘That has nothing to do with the rain… NWC pipes broke. Anywhere you have a pipe that breaks the water takes out anything else around it,’ he said referring to Monday’s damage on Arthur Wint Drive and Wednesday’s debacle on Washington Boulevard, both in St Andrew.

“Hunter said that the damage just happened to have occurred during rainfall.”

I would like to believe that these agencies are staffed by some of our best and brightest people. If they cannot coordinate critical infrastructural works, consistent with international standards of efficiency, then what real hope is there for Jamaica to become the place of choice to live, work, raise families, and do business by 2030?

Strong institutions and robust infrastructure are two of the critical ingredients which differentiate advanced economies from weak and/or failing ones. Strong and independent institutions facilitate robust infrastructural development. These are critical pillars of democracy.

The oxygen of strong institutions is the rule of law. That is why, for example, the Global Competitiveness Report (GCR) published by the World Economic Forum identifies the strength of institutions as the first of its 12 pillars which determine the level of productivity, competitiveness, and prosperity earned by an economy. The GCR is the benchmark of competitiveness reports.

I think that our decades-old demonstrated inability to get the matter of drain construction and cleaning right are indices of weak and failing institutions. It is no surprise, therefore, that our critical infrastructure continues to wobble and often keel over like a person trapped in a drunken stupor. Jamaica simply cannot continue along this route.

Last week there was a great hand-wringing by public officials about deficiencies in drain cleaning and road maintenance throughout the country. This is a dusty and rusty script.

Even some of our present legislators were caught in this moribund waltz. They, like their predecessors, seemed to have forgotten that we elected them to competently perform tasks which we, as individual citizens, cannot efficiently do because of time constraints and/or lack of resources.

If Hunter and heads of similar state agencies are convinced that they are being given the proverbial basket to carry water, they should hold up the basket to the public and cease being the fall guys.

Why the optimism?

In e-mail responses to my The Agenda piece last week, a few of my readers expressed grave doubts at my optimism that: ‘We shall overcome COVID-19’. I remain cautiously optimistic.

I do not believe COVID-19 will signal the end of life on Earth, as we know it. I think the global economy will recover. I believe an effective vaccine will be found.

This positive headline, ‘Oxford COVID vaccine works in all ages, trials suggest’, in The Guardian (UK), October 27, 2020, should rationally trigger far more than a glimmer of hope. The news item said, inter alia: “One of the world’s leading COVID-19 experimental vaccines produces an immune response in older adults as well as the young, its developers say, raising hopes of protection for those most vulnerable to the coronavirus that has caused social and economic chaos around the world.”

Historical precedents are another reason for my cautious optimism. History has taught us that, after every pandemic, people pick up the pieces and the global economy recovers bigger and oftentimes better for ordinary folks. For example, after the Black Death in the 14th century, the price of labour in England skyrocketed — primarily because they were fewer workers.

According to many historians, this development allowed for the emergence of the middle class. In the aftermath of several plagues in the 17th century there were widespread social upheavals in many parts of Europe. Some historians posit that a major consequence of these widespread social unrest was a paradigm shift in the absolute rule of monarchs. Many historians contend that this crucial development led to a cementing of the parliamentary system and a rapid dispersal of democratic ideas.

Pandemics are followed by paradigm shifts. I recommend The World’s Deadliest Plagues — The history and legacy of the worst global pandemics, by Charles River Editors, for readers who want to delve deeper into this subject.

The Spanish Flu (1918-1920), credible sources say, caused the death of some 50 million people globally. In the USA alone, nearly 675,000 people succumbed to the influenza pandemic. Yet the early 1920s ushered in unprecedented positive social change for thousands of ordinary Americans. Of course, many of the advances of the early to mid-20s were undermined by the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression from 1929-39. The manufacturing boom triggered by World War II ultimately broke the back of the Great Depression. After World War II people again picked up the pieces. There was an unprecedented era of prosperity and social change that was largely undisturbed for some 60 years.

The Herculian work and ingenious policies and programmes of America’s 32nd president, Franklin D Roosevelt (FDR), should never be discounted when tallying the factors that brought an end to the Great Depression and the economic boom after World War II. Scholarly research shows that FDR’s ‘New Deal’ programmes saved capitalism from capitulation. I discussed this at length in two previous articles some months ago.

Opportunity and challenge

In that vein, we cannot ignore another important reality. History has shown that Western liberal democracies tend to come under increased, sustained, and severe attacks from left-leaning and far-left interests during and after pandemics. So-called progressives, who are often cloaked socialists and pseudo-communists, never miss an opportunity to capitalise on global economic and social fallouts. This is when they most often present themselves as the saviours of the world.

Not far behind them are usually throngs of doomsday fanatics, confidence tricksters, and religious con men. I think one of the best ways liberal democracies can safeguard against the inevitable attacks of these wolves is through significant strengthening of safety nets for the most vulnerable.

Last week, Prime Minister Andrew Holness delivered a shot of confidence to the market when he announced that we can deal with the damage occasioned by the recent flood rains without resorting to borrowing. That is a good sign. Ultimately, though, we in Jamaica need a massive dose of economic stimulus. Where it will come from is the logical question.

Economic growth, as I understand it, springs from four tributaries:

1) Consumer demand: But our latest jobs numbers show that were are haemorrhaging. If folks don’t have incomes they can’t buy good and services.

2) Business investment: But foreign direct investments are limping, and Jamaica’s business and consumer confidence indices continue to decline, according to the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce. Local investors are jittery too.

3) Exports growth: But our agriculture, mining, and manufacturing sectors have been badly injured by COVID-19 and other long-standing factors.

4) Government spending

In two articles some months ago I argued that we need to create economic demand through government spending on generational-type infrastructural projects and paradigm shifting institutional transformation. I maintain that stance.

I know that borrowing is a bad word in our discussion of fiscal matters these days. I don’t think borrowing is inherently bad. We have missed too many opportunities to use borrowed funds to institute transformational change. Anyways, given our current economic and social trajectory, we may well have to borrow. Our economy needs some life-saving adrenaline. And, time is of the essence.

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