Dear Editor,

Many of the people who give the Andrew Holness-led Government a poor score for its handling of the economy are blindly partisan.

We have a gem of a finance minister in Dr Nigel Clarke, who we are going to find difficult to keep. The new compensation package for government-paid workers is a coup that many still have difficulty in understanding. We have done better than many countries in our region and beyond. We only have to look at Turkey, which chose to break with the status quo. Their inflation rate is at 83 per cent.

Don’t blame the Government for a loaf of bread costing $500. We don’t cultivate wheat.

However, I have two bones to pick with this Government.

The first one has to do with its treatment of local government and garbage collection in particular. For the past four decades or so Jamaican governments have paid lip service to local government. If you listen to the concerns of Jamaicans, many have to do with local matters: garbage, roads, water, transportation. And yet these same people are not ashamed that they don’t know the name of their councillor or parliamentary representative. The Member of Parliament is everything.

We have really emasculated local government with the complicity of the Opposition. We could hold legislative elections during a pandemic but not local government elections? I don’t know of a great country where local affairs are not taken seriously. I have lived in a country where a larger percentage of electors go out to vote in municipal elections than in legislative elections. Jamaicans, you’re wrong for treating local government elections with impunity. Therefore, “tek we unno get”.

This brings me to the matter of garbage collection, which ought to be within the purview of the municipal corporations. Let’s see which municipalities are cleanest. COVID-19 or no COVID-19, you have to order garbage trucks, at least biennially. Fleets have to be replenished and there are breakdowns. If we could not have ordered 50 trucks during the pandemic, we could have ordered 20 or 25. This must never be allowed to happen again!

What I have said about garbage trucks is also true of buses, the second grouse I have with Government. Four-hundred and fifty buses to serve the Kingston and St Andrew, Portmore, and Spanish Town? Don’t make me laugh! However, the whole matter of transportation deserves more fulsome treatment and this cannot be done here.

What I am saying is criticism of the Government must be carefully targeted. Don’t blame the Government for everything!

Norman W M Thompson

norms74160@gmail.com