WHEN the Jamaica Labour Party took office in September 2007 the Jamaican economy was in free-fall decline with ponzi schemes, like Cash Plus and Olint, running amok, completely unregulated by the State, and giving vulnerable citizens a false sense of financial security.

The worst global recession the world had experienced in over 80 years then snuck up on the Jamaica Labour Party in September 2008 and placed the Jamaican economy in a more perilous state. Thankfully, the Administration of the day weathered that horrible storm, despite pro-PNP media and the PNP’s alleged ally, the Jamaica Teachers’ Association, blaming the JLP for the economic hard times then prevailing. There were no riots in the streets, and real wages improved for the average civil servant, particularly the teachers and police force rank-and-file members.

The Jamaican dollar remained stable at an average rate of US$1 to $86.00 for some two years, crime was cut significantly in the JLP’s last year in office, and the middle class, while destroyed in the 1990s by the PNP’s abysmal high interest rate policies, had some hope of at least remaining the middle class with the lower classes having a glimmer of hope to become the middle class.

During the December 2011 campaign period, the PNP, led by their populist leader, Portia Simpson Miller, told the Jamaican people that times were too hard and it was all the JLP’s fault. In typical populist propaganda style, she promised jobs, almost in a perpetual state of hysteria at the time, through her Administration’s Jamaica Emergency Employment Programme (JEEP) and that the average citizen would be eating “oxtail and curry goat”.

How is the PNP working out now?

On December 29, 2011 the People’s National Party romped into office in a trouncing of the Jamaica Labour Party — no doubt based on populist campaign promises that the people of Jamaica couldn’t have given much thought to regarding how the PNP would deliver. After all, the PNP had a track record of 18 and a half years in office, and not only did they reverse the fortunes of the Jamaican economy over that period they presided over, according to the Ronald Thwaites MP, current minister of education, “the greatest transfer of resources from the poor to the rich since slavery was abolished”.

In January 2015, the Jamaican dollar is now approximately $115.00 to US$1.00 and getting worse. Crime is still out of control, with the sixth- highest murder rate in the world, and the price of food continues to move out of the reach of the average Jamaican.

Not only is the International Monetary Fund running the Jamaican economy since 2012, cutting spending on the country’s infrastructure as their loans must be paid first — never mind the broken-down elevator at the country’s largest hospital, the Kingston Public Hospital, preventing patients accessing scheduled surgeries, but gutting spending on social capital, the people, creating more hardships for them.

The middle class is doing horribly under the PNP, who seemingly had no care for that class anyway. After all, Minister Davies had declared that the PNP had lost the middle class. But the lower class, too, is suffering, and will remain poor as long as the Jamaican economy remains in the hands of people, who, it can be said, do not understand how to run an economy.

Let us look at a simple food prices chart of just five selected food items, bread, salt fish, corned beef, eggs, and sardines in December 2011 and at December 2014.

The average price of the selected food items, in just three years, has increased by 50 per cent and the dollar has lost its value by 34 per cent over the same period. This is in stark contrast to the ‘oxtail and curry goat’ economic paradise promised by the PNP populists in December 2011.

You can’t fool the people all the time

I believe the Jamaica Labour Party has the better team to run the Jamaican economy and make life easier for all classes of Jamaicans.

The Jamaican people will need to understand that taxing businesses on an ever-increasing scale, so as to hand out free goods to some people, is not an effective long-term economic solution that encourages foreign investment. Nestlé Jamaica, which has been operating here for decades, has pulled up stumps due to the economic environment in which it has to operate in Jamaica.

The Jamaica Labour Party promised, in December 2011, to reduce corporate taxes to allow for more business expansion and to create more jobs. The PNP has increased corporate taxes since resuming office, asset taxes for instance, and the CEO of Scotiabank has publicly stated that such an anti-business move has hurt her business.

The ever-weakening Jamaican dollar will only make food more expensive as we continue to import more food than we produce for ourselves, which will make life harder for the average Jamaican worker.

With a weakening economy, crime will continue to increase, making people more fearful of going about their normal daily activities and businesses more expensive to operate.

The Jamaica Labour Party had an effective energy solution to diversify the country’s energy dependence which has been botched by the PNP, making it more costly to operate a business in Jamaica.

The Jamaican people want a better future and that only comes though visionary leadership and pragmatic economic policies, not visionless politicians who spend taxpayers’ money recklessly.

Kent Gammon is deputy Opposition spokesman on industry, investment, commerce, mining and energy. Comments: kentgammon@gmail.com