MUCH of West Rural St Andrew is of a strong farming background.

So when Paul Lennox Buchanan, a land economist and aspiring parliamentarian, introduced information technology (IT) as one of his main plans in addressing chronic unemployment in the constituency, many eyebrows were raised.

The constituency is a mixed bag of deep rural-style living and upper middle class settlements. But deep down people continue to struggle economically, and the search for solutions continues apace.

“There is no modern and viable country which does not promote information technology,” first-time general election candidate Buchanan told the Sunday Observer in a mid-week interview.

“We have tremendous human potential in this country. When you go in front of Tivoli (the West Kingston community which is a stronghold of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party) for example, and you want to get your phone fixed after it fell in water and is literally written off, in less than 20 minutes young men without any technical training are able to fix it and give it back to you for maybe a $1,000 or $1,500. This is a clear example of our serious human resource potential,” said Buchanan.

“Similarly, we have a number of people in West Rural St Andrew who are literate in IT and computer skills. What we need to do is harness that, by training and creating stable jobs with a new generation of programmers, people who make software and make nations wealthy and make them grow.

“This is where China is going, where India is going, where America went with Silicon Valley… this is where Jamaica needs to go. That would be the centrepiece of my employment strategy — a new IT training development and employment centre,” Buchanan said.

A long-time activist for the Opposition People’s National Party (PNP), who first shot to prominence as captain of the Wolmer’s Boys’ School team which dominated the Corporate Area schools cricket competitions during the 1960s, and later an All-Schools captain, Jamaica Youth and Jamaica national cricketer, Buchanan is focusing on his first shot at elective politics.

Apart from the belief in a strong IT product, the man who will be nominated tomorrow to contest the seat against two-time member of parliament Andrew Gallimore is convinced that a strong education product and improved production and marketing of coffee are two other areas in which West Rural St Andrew will progress.

“Should I become member of parliament I would look at the resuscitation of the coffee industry and the jobs that could flow from there,” he said.

“Again, the challenge is marketing. The Latin Americans have virtually taken away the Blue Mountain Coffee market from us. We cannot compete with their labour. We have a niche, we have the best coffee in the world. We must market it. We need a budget on par with the tourism budget to drive it. We need to go back to visit China… call on the tremendous goodwill and expertise of (former prime minister) PJ Patterson to lead a trade delegation to China and to look at getting a long-term trade deal which addresses a proper pricing structure for our coffee. This is a big and powerful market. We cannot stay away from it. That is where we need to go,” Buchanan said.

West Rural St Andrew has changed political hands consistently. In 12 elections since the seat was created in 1959, the JLP has won seven times (including the 1983 election boycotted by Michael Manley’s PNP), to the PNP’s five.

Buchanan is faced with wiping off a huge deficit of 2,321 representing the margin of victory that Gallimore scored over the PNP’s Andrea Moore in the 2007 election. Gallimore polled 9,578 votes to Moore’s 7,257 in a 56 per cent voter turnout.

What then would have motivated Buchanan — a former national co-ordinator of the previous PNP Government’s land distribution programme, Operation Pride — to take on the challenge of contesting that seat.

“About eight months ago, I was asked to look at a number of seats, including the one held by the current prime minister,” he said. “I have a good relationship with the current prime minister. I have known him for sometime and I opted to go to West Rural St Andrew because of the challenge and because of the fact that that’s where my mother grew up, in the community of King Weston.”

Buchanan said he still has family members living in the constituency and was also encouraged by stakeholders with whom he has done business to contest the seat.

“The initial reaction was one of welcome from the PNP supporters, the other was interest from JLP supporters,” he claimed. “With the level of suffering existing in that constituency, magnified by the fallout in coffee and the destruction of the coffee farmers without the necessary leadership, there would have been not just tremendous interest, but welcome from independents as well, particularly the farming community.

“Those who are aware of or heard of my track record in the public sector, whether at MIDA or Operation Pride in terms of the thousands of persons who I co-ordinated the delivery of land to those families, there would have been tremendous influence. In fact, with the allocation of land to people at Temple Hall in the constituency over 10 years ago, prior to my even thinking of coming to West Rural St Andrew, that again would have given my coming added interest, boost and welcome,” he said.

After spending a short time working at the Ministry of Education upon his return from studies in Toronto, Canada in the 1970s, Buchanan was part of the policy team that figured prominently in the housing revolution of Jamaica during the period, under the leadership of the late minister of housing Anthony Spaulding.

“With that kind of background and exposure, it was natural for me to accept the baton,” he said.

“I was the project manager at National Housing Corporation from 1976 to early 1981 where housing projects like Barbican Terrace were sold for $14,500, and the people were asked to pay only $129 a month; Mona Commons, Seaforth in St Thomas, Esher in Hanover, Orchard in Westmoreland, Cedar Grove in Manchester, among others were projects that I participated in all over the country and that energised my sense of public service and attractiveness to political service,” he said.

If Buchanan had his way, he would insist that there must be reinvestment of earnings from the constituency by individuals and companies who run business there.

“I have researched the community investment act of America and we need to look at the parallels here,” he argued. “One of our major economic ills is the outflow of capital from our inner-city areas and our depressed rural areas, as we suffer in West Rural St Andrew.

“The banking system is the repository of our savings and yet they do not provide the type of loan funding and investment funding in those areas… there is not one single bank in West Rural St Andrew with a voting population of 36,000, and over 100,000 people living there,” he said.

“Yet, look at the kind of deposits that would flow from that area. That could not happen in the US. The Community Reinvestment Act of America says that if a dollar comes from any one of these areas, then there must be reinvestment in such areas,” he pointed out.

“I would plug this net disinvestment effect with the Community Reinvestment Act of Jamaica which mandates that at least two-and-a-half per cent of the audited net profits of financial institutions be used for infrastructural purposes to end this awful existence of precipices, bad roads, lack of potable water, high unemployment, etc,” he said.