As I see it, Jamaica, for the foreseeable future, must continue to focus like a laser-beam on achieving increased and sustained individual and national productivity, building of our social justice quotient, whist we simultaneously strengthen personal appreciation for national institutions that are mandated to bolster the rule of law.

If we vary from this path, “dawg nyam wi suppah”, as we say in local parlance.

I believe Prime Minister Andrew Holness, in his recent budget presentation, aptly demonstrated a very keen understanding of where Jamaica needs to set her sights in the next 50 to 100 years.

I have consistently said in this space that, in order to plan and pave a sustained pathway for coming generations, our leaders have to listen, not just hear, but listen and take advice from their bosses, the people of Jamaica.

“I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head,” said former president of the United States of America Theodore Roosevelt. Holness, unlike some who are vying for our highest elected office, evidently does not suffer with a tin political ear.

Hearing and listening

“Ears that do not listen to advice accompany the head when it is chopped off,” goes an African proverb. This means a person who does not heed sound advice will suffer the negative consequences.

On October 27, 2019 I sounded a warning, among other things, here: “The result of a stable economy cannot be prolonged inequality. Political administrations have more than just a responsibility to be proactive; they have a duty. They exist to serve and better the lives of people. Those that do not demonstrably achieve this, and other crucial objectives, more often than not end up — sooner or later — with their heads under the political guillotine.”

Admittedly, I am not a clairvoyant and, notwithstanding two recent scientific polls which found that the People’s National Party (PNP), but not its president, Mark Golding, had made up some important ground when compared to the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in 2020, 2021, and 2022, I do not foresee Holness’s head under the political guillotine after the votes are counted in either our 17th local government or our 19th general election, given the trajectory of the JLP.

Holness demonstrated two Thursdays ago that he understands that representational politics must centre on high purpose and serious and sustained practical actions, simultaneously.

Leftist politics talks a good talk about high purpose, but their Achilles heel is matching serious and sustained actions which require prerequisite increases in individual and national production.

I previously discussed this lethal formula for failure and how it brought Jamaica to her knees in the 1970s.

Many political scholars say that in politics one starts with an ethic, which is then buttressed by attendant polices. Holness in his budget presentation demonstrated that he understands this imperative.

Jamaica, 14 years, ago came very close to being classified as a failed State. Recall our debt as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) was 147 per cent. This meant that Government did not have the fiscal space to provide many basic necessities.

Today our debt as a percentage of GDP is just under 80 per cent. This is still way too high, but at least we can now buy a few loaves of grotto bread. This was a type of bread which many Jamaicans were fond of in the 70s and 80s.

I was very impressed that Holness used a significant portion of his budget presentation to ring home the ethic that you cannot spend what you have not produced, unless you borrow it, or tax the lifeblood out of citizens.

I believe a critical mass of Jamaicans get it that the trailerload of promises which Mark Golding spewed in his repetitive waltz of a budget presentation is tantamount to economic suicide, social backwardness, and political regression.

I believe a critical mass is sold on the reality that we must continue to pay down the debt, even faster. Those who campaign for us to do the opposite mean this country absolutely no good. We must resist them democratically.

Knowledge + sensible actions

Thomas Sankara, pan-Africanist and former president of Burkina Faso, famously said, “Knowledge is not enough to change the conditions of black people. Understand that we need to create programmes and systems that will empower us economically, spiritually, and mentality. We need courage and actions.”

Aristotle, centuries before, said: “The purpose of knowledge is action, not knowledge.”

I thought Holness progressed effortlessly in his budget presentation from political ethic (knowledge on the critical importance of lowering the debt) to actions, or as he called it “sharing the seeds of prosperity”.

I have been saying in this space for many months that the product of 14 years of national blood, sweat and tears has to translate into tangible improvements in the pockets and dinner tables of folks. Indeed, folks on the highways and byways were asking in increasing numbers: “Suh what’s in this for me. Is it that I am going to have to wait until the debt is 60 per cent of GDP before I see some benefit?”

Winning punches

Following on the nimble-fingered uppercuts which Dr Nigel Clarke delivered to the soft chin of the PNP three Tuesdays ago in his budget presentation, Holness, two Thursdays ago, floored the PNP with some very adroit body punches.

The $9,000 to 13,000, or 44 per cent increase in the national minimum wage which will become effective on June 1 this year, was a skilful punch to the solar plexus of the PNP. This refreshing bit of news continues to reverberate internationally. Many international news outlets, including the reputable Washington Post, UK Guardian, NBC, BBC, ABC and many others have reported it.

The 74 per cent jump in weekly pension caused the already rotting floorboards of 89 Old Hope Road to creek louder. The 15 per cent increase in National Housing Trust (NHT) loan limit, and the 30 per cent reduction in fees for the renewal of licence for public passenger vehicles (PPV) sent Mark Golding and the PNP to the ropes.

Two PNP Members of Parliament (MPs), when interviewed outside Parliament, suggested that the 44 per cent increase in the minimum wage would have an uncertain effect on employers. What irony! What nonsense! Scholarly research globally has found that timely increases of the national minimum wage, in countries that do have one lead to very negligible and/or zero negative impact on the vast majority of employers. I found it interesting that those high-ranking PNP members who claim that their party is the defender of the “small man” and the downtrodden have even dared to publically inveigh against a timely minimum wage increase. This is a firm indication to me that the PNP’s small man political platform is now well and truly damaged.

The PNP does not seem to understand that the JLP and parties like it globally are today much more responsive to the needs of changing societies likes ours. There is quite a bit of scholarship which supports the view that the political left is massively trailing conservative parties globally because, among other things, the left has been slow to nurture new societal values in today’s competitive global village.

I have previously argued in this space that the PNP is suffering with an acute famine of ideas. Simultaneously, conservative parties, many of which have branded themselves as compassionate conservatives, are deliberately more flexible on issues of State intervention tools which enhance national productivity.

Where are the fundamentally new ideas and policies from the PNP? I am still waiting to hear and see them.

Holness totally outfoxed the PNP with his masterful strategy of punches in bunches, I believe.

The removal of fees for HEART programmes up to level 4 hurt the PNP real bad, I believe. So too was the announcement of plans to build a new dam in western Jamaica. I think the PNP was confounded when Holness revealed that his Administration delivered 10,000 land tiltes over the last two years, while the PNP only managed a paltry 3,805 between 2012 and 2016.

I am fully on board with plans to build a new and modern parliament house to conduct the affairs of the country. That has been my position for many years. I seem to remember that when former Prime Minister Michael Manley returned to Jamaica House in 1989-92, he did put forward a proposal for a new Parliament. If memory serves me right, it would have then cost $500 million. Bellyachers who lack vision derailed the plans. Today it will cost billions. Incidentally, I still hold firmly to the view that our parliamentarians should be among the highest-paid employees in this country, so that, among other things, we can attract the best and brightest.

I wrote in this space previously that I am a great supporter of infrastructural development. The numerous infrastructure projects which are far advanced and/or will soon start, mostly financed by our money, was music to my ears. Those who say the money would be better used for crash programme-type giveaways need to stop living in an unusable past. It is a settled matter that a country needs to achieve specific infrastructural benchmarks and related in order to earn developed status. Jamaica is lagging way behind in meeting many of those benchmarks. Ironically, some who lead First-World lifestyles are the prime movers against sustained development. Even to the slightly discerning their motives are obvious.

Detoxification needed

On the matter of discernment, it should be obvious to most who watch the twirling of the political tea leaves that brand PNP needs political detoxification.

Recall the classist, sexist, and misogynist comments made about Ann-Marie Vaz by the PNP’s then most popular politician, Vice-President Damion Crawford, in the race for the formerly ninth-safest seat of that party. The Gleaner of March 4, 2019 reported excerpts of Crawford’s tirade inter alia: “If you look at potential, the furthest this lady will go is Mrs Vaz.

“If you look at potential, how far can I go, and how [far] will you come with me?” Crawford stated. He also declared that, “If this lady beat me it will be a travesty!”

Recall also incendiary statements made by then Member of Parliament for St Ann North Western Dr Dayton Campbell at a PNP gathering in Port Antonio on March 3, 2019.

Campbell said, among other things: “East Portland, let’s do this. We gonna do this for a fallen soldier. Ah never sick Dr Bloomfield sick and dead. A kill dem kill Dr Bloomfield inna the middle of the battle. If dem think seh dem a guh come kill wi doctor and then come tek wi seat, dem mek a sad mistake.”

Recall Peter Bunting likened some JLP supporters to John Crows in 2015. A Nationwide News Network news report on July 13, 2015 tells the story. Remember, too, Bunting’s opprobrious attack on Dr Nigel Clarke? The Gleaner of March 5, 2018 reported these woeful details: “In a sense, he reminds me of the black Englishman of colonial times who aspired to be sort of black royalty,” Bunting charged, controversially, in a video on social media site Facebook. “According to Bunting, Clarke has ‘great British education and sort of mimicking the values and the affectations of the former colonial masters’.

Recall, deputy general secretary of the PNP Basil Waite’s deep-seated self-loathing utterance, “And some of the likkle nasty nayga dem who ah call themselves Labourite…”

Dr Peter Phillips, then PNP president, was seated on the very podium only metres away from where Waite delivered the despicable comments.

Last week, while speaking at a party meeting in Nannyville, St Andrew, Mark Golding, the prime minister-in-waiting made these obnoxious and deeply offensive comments: “The prime minister come to parliament… is like as him start talk, God just seh ‘No, cut the mic, because we can’t deal with that,’ ” Golding said to laughter from supporters. And, of course, the Labourite dem ah seh we ah sabotage the ting, dem suh damn fool… everything happen dem seh ah we… dem paranoid,” he added.” (Jamaica Observer, March 19, 2023)

A clear pattern is blindingly obvious. Mark Golding and other high-ranking members of the PNP have repeatedly shown and told us who they are.

The late Dr Maya Angelou, renowned poet and civil rights leader, said: “When people show you who they are, believe them.” I agree.

Garfield Higgins is an educator, journalist and a senior advisor to the minister of education and youth. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or higgins160@yahoo.com.