Dawn Ritch
THE LEGACY to the island of Jamaica from Prime Minister P. J. Patterson is easily identified. In absolute figures the public debt was J$43.2 billion in 1990. By November 2005 that debt reached $828.2 billion.
This is Patterson's inescapable legacy. The size of the public debt is bitter evidence that there has been no national prosperity under his regime.
Patterson's profligacy with the nation's substance, and this mortgage upon the lives of future generations is positive proof of his abject failure as Prime Minister.
The productive sector, especially manufacturing and agriculture, have been emaciated with massive closures and loss of employment. The domestic financial sector was wiped out. Exports, with the exception of bauxite and alumina, have fallen while imports have surged. Even in CARICOM, the trade gap has widened dramatically and disastrously, and little dots on the map are recording 5 per cent and 6 per cent growth per annum, while we struggle to maintain 1 per cent growth, and regularly slip into negative growth.
During the Patterson administration, there has been no investment in Jamaica except in tourism and alumina. And that is only because domestic economic policies have little effect on these industries. His legacy is, therefore, that there has been no significant investment in other industries that could have increased the island's exports and employment.
Worst of all, the island's services accounts have worsened, as more dividends are paid overseas each year to the foreign owners of the commanding heights of the Jamaican economy. Some in his party, the ruling People's National Party, may view this as a betrayal of the mission of democratic socialism. I regard it as a betrayal of national independence, and the legitimate expectations of the people of Jamaica. That all the profits of what little production remains is repatriated abroad, vastly compounds the impact of the trade deficit on the balance of payments.
BORROWED OVERSEAS
AT COMMERCIAL RATES
In a sham policy to bolster the net international reserves and to spend on massive public sector projects, the Prime Minister and his Finance Minister have borrowed overseas at commercial rates. This was done in order to avoid the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank which lend at much cheaper rates. Only profligate governments borrow at commercial rates. Institutional support at cheaper rates is always available for developing countries, but it comes with restraints.
But Patterson grandly announced that he had done away with the IMF. But what he had really done away with were economic discipline and sound policies. He, therefore, failed to create a better economic climate for all except a favoured few party hacks and friends.
The question must, therefore, be asked: Did the Prime Minister arrogantly turn his back on these institutions in order to allow his Government to engage in profligate spending and unacceptable deficits that have produced no economic expansion? Our parlous condition is mute testimony to the sad hypocrisy which has been unleashed upon us.
A national disaster has only been averted because opportunistic foreign lenders have provided loans, based upon increasing remittances and not economic performance.
So neither Dr. Davies, Finance Minister, nor Prime Minister P. J. Patterson can take any credit for borrowings based on acceptance of their policies by private lenders. They lend because they believe that remittances, which are annually greater than the earnings from bauxite and tourism, will continue. Jamaicans send money back home to support their families many of whom would starve and be unable to pay the rent without help from overseas. That too is Patterson's legacy. This kind of management of the country's affairs is hardly worth remembering, much less honouring.
Bracing for the worst, the departing Prime Minister is making a mad dash about the place honouring himself. We have heard more from him in the last few weeks, than in all his long years in office. Patterson has been making a rash of promises. Who is going to fulfil them?
He announced 'Soapberry', a US$50 million sewerage plant in Ferry to be built by Ashtrom, a company that has become publicly controversial with regard to persons connected to the PNP regime. Patterson has even appointed a new governor-general, when anyone of sensitivity would have left that to his successor. Surely the current governor-general need not have fled so fast, nor Patterson stayed so long. This tasteless situation could have easily been avoided.
NHT BENEFITS DOUBLED
Patterson also announced that the NHT benefits will be doubled. This has more than a weird ring to it, since it's our money anyway. Nevertheless, what gardener or domestic helper who is contributing to the NHT can qualify for a house loan of $3 million much less afford to repay it? Not even employed professionals can afford loans of $3 million, yet the Prime Minister thinks he can help by offering $6 million loans to people who are without the income to support repayments.
He certainly looked after his own pension before he left office. Instead of putting public and private pension funds into building hotels and Highway 2000, the Prime Minister could have increased the paltry sum paid to pensioners. It's hardly worthwhile to take a bus to collect them from the post office. Many began collecting their pensions in 1990 when the dollar was J$8 to US$1. Today, he seems to forget that thanks to him it's J$65 to US$1. There ought to be a law protecting pensioners below which their pensions cannot fall, like the law protecting those on the minimum wage. Since this didn't cross Mr. Patterson's mind, I hope it crosses the mind of his successor.
It should also be noted that any successor is entitled to expect to be able to leave a legacy of his or her own, not merely to carry out the half-baked ideas from the all-time master of confection.
Patterson said roads would be his legacy. Yet, he has been building a northcoast highway for several years that is way over budget by about three times, and way behind schedule. A pregnant woman recently had to be taken to hospital in a wheelbarrow from Cascades, because the access road broke away two years ago and the Government couldn't bother to fix it. Roads will have to be the legacy of somebody else, not the Most Honourable.
Nor will it be housing, because the Prime Minister's programmes have been tainted with episodes like Kennedy Grove. Hard-working taxpayers were frequently sold units in flood-prone areas and river beds, with the result that all joint ventures have now been put on hold.
Nobody is going to remember the last few days of any political legacy, only the net result. After being invisible for so long, the Prime Minister has come out of the woodwork only to pile up bills for the attention of his successor. Far from planning to extend his stay after the selection of his successor, Mr. Patterson should just go.
