Recently, a reader sent me what he termed “evidence” that the People’s National Party (PNP) has new and better ideas for the faster growth and development of Jamaica. I am being charitable when I say the evidence was a thin gruel.

Those like me who hail from the rural parts know that one of the worst things a person can give to you is big bowl of watery porridge. Porridge ‘without body’, as country people call it, is higher in rank maybe only to watery chocolate tea. My late grandfather would be livid if someone served him chocolate tea which did not have the ‘fat’ swimming on top. The thick concentration of fat, he said, indicated that the right amount of chocolate was used in the preparation. Folks typically do not like watered-down stuff. Stuff, includes politics. Most people like definitiveness. They like the practical.

Only ‘likkle bit ah beef’

The instalment the reader sent in to me — I think he will send me more — are actually tweets within the last two months by Opposition Leader and PNP President Mark Golding.

A shambolic state, that is how one of the tweets characterised the state of the health sector, headed by Dr Christopher Tufton.

More specifically, the tweet says that waiting times are punishing, resources are scarce, cost for diagnostic tests are high, congestion at hospitals and health centres is rife, and frequent breakdown of critical machines is commonplace.

The PNP says it will remedy all these problems if it is returned to Jamaica House. It says it will increase the number of renal dialysis centres; upgrade health centres across the country, upgrade Type-B hospitals; and introduce a national health insurance scheme, which it estimates will cost in the region of $22 billion each year, plus a raft of other improvements.

This all sounds wonderful. Except for the $22 billion related to the proposed national health insurance scheme, no other figure is presented. This got my antennae up. Only this ‘likkle bit ah beef’ won’t work, Golding.

For over a year I have been saying in this space that the PNP needs to present to the country its new and or better ideas to grow the economy faster, and remedy the long-standing problems in health, education, crime, in particular the lowering of our abnormal murder rate, etc. More people have started asking similar questions in recent weeks. I suspect the heat of public scrutiny is now forcing 89 Old Hope Road to dispense with some of its dodges and diversionary noises, and frontally address kitchen table issues.

Presenting a bag of promises is not addressing kitchen table issues, though. That is an old ‘samfie’ (trick) approach which a majority of Jamaicans can now spot from a mile away.

I have been saying here for many months that the PNP needs to tell the country how it will finance its trailer-load of promises. Well-thinking Jamaicans have a duty to insist that the PNP show us the money, so that their mathematics can be double-checked long before an election is announced.

The PNP does not seem to get it, that “fuzzy maths” (think George W Bush) “nah keep again” (out of fashion), as we say on the streets. Fully costed programmes, as they call them in Britain, is the direction in which Jamaica must continue in order to prevent the severely reckless “run wid it” catastrophe which brought this country to the edge of financial ruin under former Prime Minister P J Patterson and one of Jamaica’s worst finance ministers, to date, in my opinion, Dr Omar Davies.

Give credit, ‘a big man thing’

Incidentally, the mentioned reader also sent me a clip of Golding delivering his budget debate presentation earlier this year. Golding’s trump card idea “to revolutionise the health sector” seems to be the proposed national health insurance scheme. Thanks to Google, I found out that a national health insurance scheme is already being worked on by the present Andrew Holness-led Administration with a green paper written as far back as 2019.

Google also presented me with this: ‘National health insurance — a game-changer whose time has finally come?’ (Jamaica Observer, December 2, 2018). This insightful piece by former Prime Minister Bruce Golding said among other things: “The minister of health, Dr Christopher Tufton, announced recently that proposals for a national health insurance scheme are to be submitted shortly to the Cabinet and it is expected that it will come into being next year. It is an issue that has been contemplated for more than 50 years. Hopefully, its time has finally come.”

“When the National Insurance Scheme was being designed in 1965, consideration was given to including health insurance along with pension and disability benefits. It was calculated that this would have required wage-related contributions of 12 per cent to be borne equally by employees and employers.

“There was strong resistance from employer groups to this level of contribution and, in the face of the vigorous campaign against the scheme as a whole by the then Opposition, the health coverage component was scrapped and the wage-related contributions rolled back to five per cent.

“The idea was again put forward in a Green Paper tabled in Parliament in 1974 but it was eventually shelved to make way for the National Housing Trust that was introduced in 1976 and which required similar wage-related contributions of five per cent.”

Many good ideas from as far back as 50 years ago have had to be shelved for decades because of a combination of a lack of political will and more so lack of financial resources. The national identification system (NIDS) is another sad example. Some credible sources say it was recommended by former Prime Minister Michael Manley some 40 years ago. I hope this Administration will implement a national health insurance scheme as soon as it is fiscally prudent. This would indeed be a game-changer in Jamaica.

Also, it is a big man thing to give credit. It would be good if Golding did so in relation especially to the national health insurance scheme proposal.

Give us something… new

In another tweet sent to me by the mentioned reader, Golding hinted at plans for youth development. His tweet noted that the PNP had “plans to provide a fully funded national programme to provide opportunities for vulnerable youth”. It goes on, “We must give them the chance to become productive citizens.” Related rhetoric did not add any further tangible insight.

Some inevitable questions come to the fore. How much is this “fully funded national plan” going cost? And, how will this process be operationalised? Those critical questions are not answered.

I expect some are going bellow, “Higgins, do you really expect the PNP to give details to include costing when they do not know when the prime minister will announce the next general election?”

“Yes!”

Why? The awful and deadly consequences of bait-and-switch politics are all around us. The rancid smell can only be doused with credible details.

The PNP might want to take a few lessons from its fraternal relations in the UK. The current prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has until January 2025 to call the next parliamentary election. Pundits in the UK speculate that Sunak, the UK’s first prime minister of Indian descent, will go to the polls in the latter part of 2024.

Sunak’s opposite number, Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the British Labour Party, a socialist party and fraternal relative of the PNP, in February of this year unveiled his “five missions for Britain’s future under labour”. Details of how much these pledges will cost the British taxpayers and how they will be operationalised are available online. Just Google! This is how modern economies and self-respecting people are managing their national affairs.

Those in the PNP who go around talking about it is way too early to release details in relation to financing and operationalisation of its plans — because they say — for fear they will be stolen by the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government are involved in a massive three-card trick to which well-thinking folks should not fall prey. Their movie was released years ago in this country and the ending was horrific.

Why is the PNP evidently afraid to provide details of their new and/or better ideas for what Jamaica will look like after five years if it is returned to Jamaica House? I believe there are two primary reasons. First, I believe they really do not have any real big ideas that are new and/or better to move Jamaica forward, faster. Second, there is a deadening fear in the PNP that its so-called plans and programmes are so meagre they will wither when objectively juxtaposed against those of the Holness Administration.

How will the PNP’s plans for the youth objectively stack up, for example, against these recently delivered innovations by the Holness Administration?

Headline: ‘HEART Trust to remove fees from all programmes up to Level 4 — Holness’. (Jamaica Observer, March 16, 2023)

The news item said, among other things: “All programmes offered by the Government-funded HEART/NSTA Trust up to Level 4 (associate degree) will be offered free of cost.

“This was announced on Thursday by Prime Minister Andrew Holness during his contribution to the 2023/24 Budget Debate.

” ‘In furtherance of the policy directive to increase the size of the trained labour force, effective April 1, 2023, the HEART/NSTA Trust will remove all tuition and administrative fees from its programmes up to Level 4…’ Holness said.

“He said this will allow for access to vocational training for all Jamaicans regardless of economic status.”

Headline: ‘Gov’t launches STEM scholarships for student teachers’

The story noted, “Full scholarships valued at $2.5 billion are to be awarded to 1,250 new student-teachers at The Mico University College, as the Government advances its thrust for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) focus in education.” (The Gleaner, July 1, 2023)

Headline: ‘Gov’t providing $2.4 billion in STEM scholarships to UTech students’

These and related details were provided: “The Government is spending $2.4 billion for scholarships tenable at the University of Technology (UTech) in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects. This is being facilitated through an agreement signed by the Ministry of Finance, Students’ Loan Bureau, and UTech for the provision of 1,000 scholarships.”

The PNP is 85 years old its members have formed the Administration many times since universal adult suffrage in 1944. Doubtless they know that politics is a retail business. Folks compare and contrast what is being offered to them and, most importantly, they also examine track records of delivery.

The JLPs’ track record is good on several fronts. Major projects, including the St Thomas Road Improvement Project, will soon be finished. Many are far advanced and several have been placed in the oven. More than likely these will be ready before the end of 2024, or certainly by early 2025.

The PNP knows it cannot campaign on the platform of poor economic management. Massive devaluation is a thing of the past. Employment is at the highest since Independence. There is no shortage of foreign exchange. Pertaining to our net international reserves (NIR), there was a US$90 million increase in July. At the end of July the reserves stood at US$3.75 billion. Inflation was low at 6.3 per cent at the end of June 2023, and the rave reviews, local and international, about the Holness Administration’s sound management of the economy continue.

What’s more, crime is trending down. Murders fell by almost 12 per cent between January and July this year. A report by the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), recently, showed a reduction in serious crimes including rape, shooting and robberies.

Some in the PNP might be figuring that old-time sloganeering reminiscent of the ‘Better Mus Come’, ‘Heavy Manners’, ‘Black Man Time Now’ era will be sufficient to get them across the finish first. They are wrong. That mindset is predominately dead and buried.

As I see it, the PNP’s continued failure to present plans and programmes which can credibly match or outmatch the delivery record of the Holness Administration puts them in an invidious position. Kern Spencer, former state minister in the Ministry of Energy, warned that: “If the PNP should lose a next election dog nyam our supper.” (Jamaica Observer, January 14, 2022). He may have seen the future of his party.