Dear Editor,

History should have taught us by now that sustainable development of Jamaica can only be achieved by all of us collaborating as a people and will not be achieved if led by foreign investors.

Our first major foreign investors were the British who colonised us, and with the labour of slaves from Africa exploited our rich agricultural resources and developed a thriving export of sugar, bananas, and other agricultural products which benefited the owners of the plantations and their masters in Britain, whose wealth was vastly increased while Jamaica and Jamaicans were left in debt.

The end of slavery saw the British Government compensate the slave owners for their “losses” due to Emancipation, but the enslaved, who were not compensated for their bondage, were cast aside to fend for themselves and seek menial jobs, with many of them capturing land and developing squatter and slum settlements islandwide.

Most of our people, who are descendants of those freed slaves, were never sustainably developed, but the exploitation continued through waves of foreign investors in industries such as bauxite/alumina, tourism, and the agro industry, with the business process outsourcing industry being the latest to attract foreign investors.

We live in a global village and there is nothing wrong with foreign investment, but we must favour investment from our own people and focus on the sustainable development of our own rather than put so much hype and attention on foreign investors.

The waves of foreign investors in tourism in recent years need to be examined in terms of the overall benefits, other than a few jobs, for the betterment of our people. Despite significant investments in fabulous hotels, which are occupying our most precious beachfront properties, they are usually surrounded by squatter settlements which we ignore, and then we wonder why crime and violence are continuing to climb.

The answer is very clear to anyone thinking about sustainable development. It is because we are courting mainly foreigners to invest in our best properties and, in most cases, they develop all-inclusive resorts, which are really “all exclusive” to most of our Jamaican population, except for those working in these establishments, while we ignore the surrounding communities and do not invest in improving the living conditions of these people, many of whom are workers in the industry.

If we do not change our strategy and begin to focus on the sustainable development of our own people, we are doomed to continue on our current downward path of perpetuating underdevelopment, crime, corruption, and the marginalisation of most of our people.

Instead of marching down a path of renewed foreign investment exploiting our natural resources, let us encourage our people to invest in our own development and utilise our vast resources, such as those available via the National Housing Trust, to launch an islandwide slum and squatter settlement upgrading programme which would be comprehensive in approach to include not just physical improvements but also social and cultural development.

Robert Stephens

rspragma@yahoo.com