A bad year behind us
MANY of us will be glad to see the back of 2009, but the hope going forward does not at this time encourage too many of us to welcome 2010 with open arms.
We may have resolved to be less pessimistic in 2010, but the reality pointer indicates that 2010 is likely to be worse than 2009. As I write this column, it is still about two hours before the prime minister’s address to the nation on one of the most unpopular tax packages ever instituted by a government. We are in familiar territory, ratcheted up to many degrees by a devastating global recession and a government that in the main has not been sufficiently prepared to engage the people on the raw details of our problems, that is, up until about August.
While I recognise that the politics of the moment means that the Government cannot be its own pall bearer by spilling its guts to us all at once, it seemed to have moved in the opposite direction in its approach to the Jamaican people. Its actions indicated that it took us for children, and it was the mother who could not tell us that daddy lost his job and that there was no guarantee that next Sunday there would be chicken on the table.
Since August, the administration has shown some willingness to open up more, but as it did, a gulf was seen between the whole truth and the administration’s ability to lead us through the perilous times ahead.
While I know that it is common practice for governments in Jamaica to play games with us whenever new tax measures are announced – impose a highly unpopular tax then come back later with a politically correct, equitable package – it somehow boggles the mind that some of the most basic items consumed by the poorest among us were included in the tax package.
Some of us are aware that a destructive IMF agreement could have been signed from as early as August. It is my understanding that among some of the early IMF conditionalities were the instant fire sale of Air Jamaica, getting rid of Petrojam and the immediate cutting of the civil service jobs.
Sources close to the Government have told me that the administration had been in talks with the big players in the financial sector with a view of either restructuring the domestic debt and/or convincing them to accept a lessening of the rate on government paper. It is my understanding that this raised a red flag to the IMF and saw invoked in this, one word… Default!
If this is in fact so the administration has no one else to blame but itself. As much as confidentiality in the IMF negotiations must be maintained due to what must be the delicacy of certain information, it is the first duty of the Government to engage its people at all stages. There may be times that the Government is forced to hold back information. That I understand, although I cannot agree with it.
It is never the duty of the citizenry to side with the Government in these negotiations. All the people have to go off is the word of the Government. When this is not forthcoming and public perception takes over, the speculation, no matter how wild, is quite valid.
Even if the prime minister announces a new deal with the big players in the financial sector to the extent that GCT on a white cane for a blind person can be reversed, the Government has allowed so much to slip by not telling us the whole truth: it will need to summon up all of its energy to get us closer to a re-engagement.
It has taken a beating in being classified as a big-man party and administration, and the recent tax package seems to be confirmation. All of that needs to change now, not tomorrow.
The full hundred must be divulged to the people, IMF or no IMF. It is a reality that our profligate ways have caught up with us. We have lived on the loans of others for so long that the banker is now saying to us, ‘Show us how you can pay us back, plus show us that you are serious about changing from a regime of borrowing to pay living expenses to one where it is not likely that you will every few years go cap in hand to international lending agencies as a world beggar-at-large’.
We do not like to pay our taxes and always make the claim that we do not get any bang for our tax buck. We always believe that money will always come from abroad. Years ago when Eddie Seaga was prime minister, polls showed that the public saw some of his main strengths as economic management and ability to secure US loan assistance.
Now that our day of reckoning has arrived and most countries in the world have their own problems, we will be increasingly forced to pay our own way. The problem is, where is the production to come from? Apart from a handful of big players, most of our business people are seemingly doing business in a way that only enriches them but does not expand beyond the boundaries of their limited sphere of influence.
Many of our small business people need training to allow them to move beyond petty trading. Many of them have the energy and the will but lack the methodology to take it one step further. One obvious way that the tax base can be expanded is to encourage our local manufacturers in agro-processing to step up their game in terms of packaging, marketing and that all-crucial link in the global supply chain. At the base our petty traders must be trained to see marketing and efficiency in their operations as key elements of not just sustaining the business, but expanding it.
Many believe that this is the worst time to enter into business, whether it is a small bar, a small computer cafe or a medium-sized supermarket. I say while others hang their heads and fret, this is the time to move.
Can we afford this democracy?
It is no secret that this country has been held back by placing politics above development of the people and the country. It made good sense to expand the education base to include as many as possible. It was politics that watered down the delivery of quality education. In the numbers game of politics, we gave many poor children a space in primary and high schools. Politics made some of those schools no more than a holding area for children from homes with poor parenting.
Important names have proclaimed that successive administrations have deliberately watered down education to keep the population dumb and easily led astray. It is also said that the democratic ideal only works when the people of a country are sufficiently educated.
Ruling administrations are in the game to stay in power. Opposition parties are convinced that their first duty is to oppose in all instances because the ultimate goal is to capture state power. Thus, whenever a ruling administration recognises that a crisis is on and it needs to consult with the opposition, deep down the opposition knows that for it to consult with the ruling party, is to assist the Government to stay in power.
Some people have been calling for a government of national unity while knowing that in our restrictive politics, concord across the aisle will never be realised because the first priority of our type of politics is: 1) politics and 2) anything which comes after.
If the first priority of our political leaders was the development of the country, opposition parties would forever be in opposition. At the very outset of the IMF negotiations, had the JLP administration taken the opposition leader and other key PNP people into its confidence, do we honestly believe that the PNP would not use some of the information to its own advantage and undermine the Government? And if the roles were reversed, do we believe that the JLP would be nationally altruistic and not yield to the basest of politics?
Our politics is therefore a destructive one where the attainment and maintenance of power is the overwhelming priority, because political power in our setting means that one side and its friends eat well while those in opposition cry out for their bite of the cherry again.
The PNP decided to take to the streets because it is a political party first. With an unpopular government, it sees it as the perfect moment to register with the cries of the people. But do we honestly believe that the PNP cares about the people to a greater extent than it hungers for power?
As I said before, the Government must be blamed for its seeming lack of care for the poorest among us and because of this, it has energised a moribund opposition party that is still fragmented and broke as a church mouse.
Frankly, the PNP just might get what it wishes for: political power. Who wants political power now? I am certain that the prime minister must have had fond thoughts of the halcyon days when he was in opposition. Prior to Golding becoming Opposition leader, a person such as Christopher Tufton, now agriculture minister, would write (in August 2003) the following, “But what if after paying the taxes, the society remains disorganised, or worse, more impoverished? In these circumstances, the taxpayer loses confidence in the capacity of the Government to effectively utilise his tax dollar. It is no longer the taxes or a lack of it that becomes the problem, rather the problem is those entrusted to collect and manage the tax revenue.”
For the People’s National Party (PNP), this might have been the reason for their loss in the local government elections, coming so soon after their electoral victory at the general elections. The announced tax package back in April was just too much to bear, particularly within the context of Dr Davies’ infamous comments concerning imprudent political spending during the period leading up to the general elections.
What goes around comes back around.
Our democracy only works to the extent that the vote every five years is free, fair, and free from fear. But at critical junctures, the ruling administration and the opposition need to sit down and have some concord on pressing matters. That’s the sweet theory, the ideal, but in reality it will not happen because our politics is one where booty gained during power is the ultimate objective.
We are therefore left with no other option but to pressure the ruling administration to do what it was elected to do. Lead. One assumes that Golding, at the end of 2009, will leave that Golding behind.
We are expecting the prime minister to step out to the bat and recognise that nine wickets are down. He has to save the game. Unfortunately, the sounds coming from the PNP are not ones to convince me that that party is any closer to participating fully in the democratic ideal. It tastes and smells power and that is its objective.
Am I convinced that the PNP can do a better job than the JLP administration? Although Golding spent the first two-thirds of the year wringing his hands, the hope is that once he gets the IMF negotiations out of the way, we are likely to see a new man.
Mr Golding would do well not to make many of us see him as a wish and a hope. He is here now and although our democracy has its flaws, for now, we have to turn to him.
Does the PNP really want the job or is it just grandstanding? Are we yet convinced that it can do a better job than the JLP?
What could the PNP do better?
In the 2007 elections, there were some voters, especially those under 35, who had never seen or witnessed as adults a JLP government. Remember now, the PNP had been in power from 1989 to 2007, thanks in large part to the fact that Eddie Seaga was leader of the opposition JLP during the 1989 to 2005 period.
Some of those voters have now seen the JLP. To be fair to Golding and his team, they won power at the worst of times. An increase in food staples worldwide, an enormous increase in the price of oil and the global recession, along with lashes from hurricanes Dean (2007) and Gustav (2008,) provided Golding with the worst nightmare of his life. It wasn’t a vexed, petulant Portia.
Now that those voters have seen the JLP, the temptation is to believe that what they have seen is all that the JLP is capable of. Golding and the JLP have to repair the image of the party, the administration and the leader. But in 2010 it has to do this in a parallel world while trying to manage the country’s affairs in a much better fashion than in the previous years of 2008 and 2009.
If after having seen the JLP the nation is tempted to believe that it can only get worse, the ruling party is going to be the first target and many will be crying out for its scalp. But what is there to indicate that the PNP will fare any better?
For one, it still has Dr Omar Davies giving it advice. This is the same Omar Davies portrayed thus by a recent writer: “Dr Davies has paraded like a hero of our financial and economic systems and this is a farce. One thing he said in the Finsac enquiry that I noticed has not got the attention of media, analysts or anybody else was his response to a question on his practice of selling government paper at high interest. Dr Davies, in his defence, said that ‘the Government had to pay its bills’. I thought to myself, how can anyone justify borrowing money to pay their bills (including salaries for civil servants — a practice that has been ongoing for years). If I pay my household bills through borrowing money (at excruciatingly high interest rates) the way Dr Davies did, then I am doomed for bankruptcy. How can anyone run a country that way and admit it as if it is quite OK? Surprisingly no one raised any concern about this admission.”
It still has Portia Simpson Miller in place, playing second fiddle to the man she leads. On showing or articulating empathy for the poor, Simpson Miller wins hands down. It is human nature to take bad news better from those whom we trust and love the most. So, it is more likely that with a PNP government in place, with the empathy coming from Portia, we would still be hungry but happy with it.
I cannot see a PNP administration under Portia doing anything but redistributing what we do not have. The Golding personality is all the PM has. When he utters the term ‘poor people’ it doesn’t quite ring the same way as when Portia says it.
If empathy is a big calling card then maybe we ought to put the PNP in place and allow it to underperform the economy as it did from 1989 to 2007 when almost all the countries in the Caribbean and Latin America showed significant levels of growth.
A PNP administration in the global recession is not a pipe dream anymore. If the JLP wants to clutch its bit of history, it needs to prove us all wrong and get it right in 2010.
observemark@gmail.com