Richard Byles (left), president and CEO of Life of Jamaica Limited (LOJ) converses with Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe (right) during yesterday's LOJ High Flyers Club appreciation luncheon at the Hilton Hotel in Kingston. Joining in the conversation is Pansie Bisnott, a leading insurance agent and Michael Fraser , deputy CEO and chief marketing officer at LOJ. (Photo: Michael Gordon)

CHIEF Justice Lensley Wolfe said yesterday that any effort to turn around the country should involve a return to traditional Jamaican values and attitudes.

"We need to realise as a people that if we are going to turn around the economy of Jamaica all of us will have to begin to focus on performance in or fields of endeavour. Production will only improve when we become performance conscious," he said. "The mentality of getting something for nothing has got to be eradicated from the society....This mentality has been a contributory factor to the high level of crime in the society. Why work when I can traffic drugs and, with a gun, hold up hard working persons and rob them," said the chief justice.

Justice Wolfe, who was speaking at the Life of Jamaica Limited High Flyers Club members' appreciation luncheon at the Hilton Hotel in Kingston, said that the nation's children should not be left out of any effort at change in the country.
"If we are going to save the nation our focus must be on saving the children, who are the future of Jamaica," he said.
"We must ensure that all our children are exposed to the right values and attitudes. We must ensure that they are equipped to make a meaningful contribution to the development of the national life," said the chief justice.

Values and attitude, he added, determined the quality of performance. He added that Jamaicans were often misguided in believing that the most important contribution one can make to the less fortunate was money.

"While financial contributions have their place in the scheme of things, instilling in persons the right values and attitude is far more important," said the judge.

He challenged the insurance agents to impart the importance of being performance conscious to their fellow Jamaicans.
"As persons who are know the importance of performance you have to engage yourself in touching the lives of your fellow Jamaicans in the national interest," he said. "Too many of us Jamaicans are failing to contribute to the national life.
We are not performing. We are not producing. Things will only change when most of us realise that as citizens we have to become more productive."

Trousers in Denim

Cream of the 'Crop'

Cheeky's World