Going nowhere
An Opposition party, for obvious reasons, has a lot of free time on its hands. Among other things, a responsible Opposition uses the lion’s share of its free time to think, particularly about the big and/or long-standing issues that retard a country’s growth and development, and, thereafter, craft credible/fundable answers (policies) for implementation — since, in our system of democracy, the Opposition is the Government-in-waiting.
Two years ago I said here that I believed there was a famine of ideas in the People’s National Party (PNP). Utterances by the leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition and president of the PNP Mark Golding at a post National Executive Council (NEC) press conference last Sunday was more evidence.
Just over a year ago I asked this question here: Is the Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition Mark Golding a throwback to an unusable past?
Golding’s stewardship is now approaching three years. His responses to the questions of journalists last Sunday should leave no doubt in the minds of reasonable folks as to the answer to my question.
Our business, serious business
I maintain that folks have not just a responsibility, but a duty to interrogate the present and past utterances of individuals who place themselves in the public square. Failure to do so facilitates the undermining of critical guard rails of democracy and the very purpose of knowledge. I am not a citizen of any other country, and do not wish to become one, so I treat this duty with seriousness.
Golding is our prime minister-in-waiting. All citizens have not just a responsibility, but a duty to interrogate his actions and how these reflect on good judgement or lack thereof.
Here is something else that many seem not to understand. There is a profound difference between a person who decides to live in the Blue Mountains as a hermit and a politician or retired politician who deliberately and consciously places himself on the political hustings in furtherance of overt political objectives which include, among other things, the acquisition of State power and/or assisting in said acquisition.
Consider this: “Our orientation and priorities are not the same and our methodology of governance is not the same. So it will not be the same thing, we intend to prioritise the issue which we feel have to be addressed in order for Jamaica to move from a low-wage, low-tech, low-growth model to one in which we have inclusive growth and we are realising the full potential of our people and that requires prioritising investments in the people where those investments are needed to make a difference, early childhood development and primary school, training on the job, and vocational training. These are critical areas. So that’s an example of where we will be prioritising going forward.”
Golding here was responding to those who have expressed the view that a future Mark Golding premiership would be a facsimile of the present Andrew Holness-led Administration.
He is evidently promising to make all our lives better. That’s wonderful, but, like scores of other citizens, I want… no, need to know how this will be practically achieved.
Golding has been at the helm of the PNP for nearly three years now. He has criss-crossed the island on what PNP insiders describe as “listening tours”. He has had dozens of meetings with different interest groups locally, and I saw reports that he has engaged members of the Diaspora on several occasions. I don’t think he can credibly say he is still merely feeling his way through.
In the absence of credible substance which specifically addresses how Golding will achieve what he says has to be done for Jamaica to be a better place, his utterances must be seen for what they really are — sloganeering, nothing else.
People today are focused more so on the ‘how’.
Political scholars say socialist parties like the PNP suffer with four afflictions. These are old-style tax and spend twinned with State power economics, anti-Western foreign policy modus operandi, more than a passing embrace of identity politics, and a reprehensible history of shouting denunciation or worse of people who disagree with the left.
I previously detailed examples of these in public pronouncements by PNP spokespersons. We must ‘tek sleep and mark death’. For these and related reasons, substance over sloganeering must be demanded. Our country’s future is serious business.
I have said here before that they days of politicians implicitly and explicitly saying “when we win we will tell you how we are going to pay for it” should be treated with utter contempt. We have suffered immensely because we accepted the proverbial ‘puss inna bag’ by several slightly honourable men in the past. We cannot continue to repeat the past.
Four Sundays ago I said here that apathy will be the biggest opponent of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and PNP candidates in our next national election. Showing folks the money, meaning proof that policies are fundable is one sure way to reduce chronic apathy.
Hair-raising
In the mentioned interview Golding also said the PNP is now in the phase of policy development. This should cause our antennae to stand up, because he has said on several occasions that the PNP was ready to take back the keys to Jamaica House.
Golding also said the PNP’s policies “will focus on solving Jamaica’s deep social problems, especially crime and violence” (Nationwide News Network, April 24 2023). He continued, “This Government has focused on the militarisation of security, spending more money on the military, on military assets, at the expense really of social investments that are needed to reduce the number of young people going into crime and to also facilitate dispute settlement on the ground to avoid reprisals which are a major source of murders in the country as well as a more effective legislative response to the ongoing needs of the police for the right tools to spear fish for violence producers. These are areas where we are more nimble. We are more skilful at operating. So there will be a substantial difference a PNP Government and what the JLP is offering.”
I think Golding’s utterances here are hostile, especially to recent evidence.
Recall the recent findings of the research conducted by the Caribbean Policy Research Institute (CAPRI) titled ‘Testing, Testing: Challenges to Measuring Social Programmes for At-Risk Youth’, and recall also the comments made by The University of the West Indies Professor Anthony Clayton on the opening statement of the report which indicated that, despite investment of billions of dollars over decades on a plethora of social interventions, there has been no noticeable changes in murders and shootings, nor have the interventions produced evidence that suggest that they are working”.
Berkshire Hathaway’s vice-chair, Charlie Munger, in a recent interview with Yahoo Finance, said that the one mantra he followed in life came from Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister of Singapore. According to Munger: “Lee Kuan Yew said one thing over and over and over again all his life,” and that was to “figure out what works and do it”.
The Administration’s crime management strategy is working. The most recent crime statistics which I have seen noted that all major crimes were down for the first quarter of 2023. Recently, Commissioner of Police Major Antony Anderson told the country at a press conference that, “Murders were down by 21 per cent. Shootings were down by 13 per cent. Rapes were down by 47 per cent. Robberies were down by 32 per cent, and break-ins were down by 11 per cent.”
Minister of National Security Dr Horace Change, who has one of the hardest jobs in the country, deserves some credit.
It bears repeating that those who do not suffer with convenient amnesia would, doubtless, remember the massive increase in budgetary allocation to the Ministry of National Security in recent years. I recall the hails of complaints which emanated from some quarters at the magnitude of the increases. The reductions are not lucky accidents. We are beginning to see the results of the considerable and sustained investments in national security since 2017. I think Golding needs to reconsider his planned policy direction on crime and violence given publicly available evidence.
The technology revolution
I don’t think Golding really gets it that, “The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data.” This was the banner headline in the respected The Economist of May 6, 2017. There is a technology revolution happening. Its consequences are and will be far-reaching, even more so than the Industrial Revolution which started in the 18th century. This revolution is changing everything and fast. The Andrew Holness-led Administration has been pumping billions of dollar into the rapid expansion and improvement of our Internet infrastructure, including Internet in our schools, across the country.
Minister of Education and Youth Fayval Williams, in an article in this newspaper last February, titled ‘Education sector on the road to full digitalisation by 2025’, noted, among other things: “Access to quality digital resources by all Jamaicans is a key determiner of our place in the global economy. The Government is fully committed to the development of digital resources at all levels of our education sector as we recover stronger, continue to build resilience, and aim to achieve excellence.”
Three Mondays ago, for example, “Cabinet approved several contracts to bolster public education, including a US$848, 815.61 contract to C&W Business Jamaica for the provision of wide area network (WAN) connectivity services to 68 institutions for three years.” (Jamaica Observer, April 13 2023)
I don’t think reasonable folks will say the Administration is spouting sloganeering. There were 2.03 million Internet users in Jamaica in January 2022. Then Jamaica’s internet penetration rate stood at 68.2 per cent of the total population. Jamaica’s Internet penetration rate stood at 82.4 per cent of the total population at the start of 2023. As I see it, access to good Internet speed is one of the most valuable tools in the toolbox of any citizen today. It is within the context of this technological revolution that countries like Jamaica have to quickly foster opportunity creation, expansion, and redistribution. To achieve these critical objectives require some important recognitions. For example, the old labour markets of the 1960s are gone and the working class as it existed then is gone too.
“Make it plain”
The Bible tells us what happens when old wine is poured into new wineskins. As I listened to the mentioned news item that biblical gem came to mind.
Consider this: “We think that Jamaica’s economy is too dependent on a relatively narrow economic base, and so agriculture in an area which we feel is ripe for further investment and further emphasis in order to help the rural economy, reduce rural poverty, and increase our own food security as a nation.”
No single sector has the answer to the reduction of poverty. Additionally, agriculture minus considerable investments and inputs of new technology is not going to succeed in revving-up the rural economy. In the absence of that important bit of clarity Golding should also say, unequivocally, whether a future PNP Administration is planning to reintroduce the failed Nyerere (named after Julius Nyerere, president of Tanzania) Farms and micro-dams schemes of the 70s. He needs to “Make it plain,” as Malcolm X said.
Two Sundays ago I said, among other things, in this space: “Ruling parties gain in the run-up to general elections. The PNP has to maintain its current momentum for two and half years. That is nigh impossible for an Opposition party, unless the Administration has a death wish. I think the PNP has peaked far too early. Given these and other factors which I have previously discussed here I am forecasting a third term for the JLP.”
Here is another reason for the forecasting of a third term for the JLP. The PNP has spent the lion’s share of its time since the September 3, 2020 trouncing campaigning how brutally bad things are in Jamaica. But it has evidently not given much thought to creating practical/fundable policies that will change what they claim are our dreadful realities.