Dawn Ritch

When I started working at 22, with a first degree, my annual salary was $8,000.

I rented an unfurnished, air-conditioned, one-bedroom apartment in Manor Park with separate living/dining room and kitchen for $150 a month. Yes, $150 a month. I can't recall what I paid for electricity. The place was so nice that an older married relative was delighted to be given the key for the conduct of assignations. So, morn-ing, noon and night it was locked up. The curtains were drawn, and the air was always running. But I still can't remember the light bill, so negligible was it in the scheme of things.

On that salary, I also collected Jamaican art, entertained friends at restaurants a couple times a week, and travelled overseas quite frequently. The airfare to Florida was US$50, or J$40.

Underemployed

Like the vast majority of Jamaicans, I've been underemployed for the last decade. During this time, the policies of Dr. Omar Davies and the People's National Party government have turned bank clerks into taxi drivers. They've caused garment manu-facturers to sell their factories. Over 30,000 individuals lost their jobs, most of whom were the breadwinners of their families. And now the International Monetary Fund and the Jamaica Labour Party want the Government to make thousands of civil servants redundant, instead of making the civil service more efficient.

The Patterson administration flooded the country with redundancy payments virtually from every sector. Before that, Edward Seaga, acting on IMF advice, reduced the size of the civil service and it cost him the 1989 General Election. Portia Simpson Miller would do well to remember this when she makes her decision. So far, she has done well following her own counsel.

Today, traffic stands at a crawl because everybody bought a vehicle and went into the taxi business. These taxis fight on every square for fares. The drivers are, in the main, unkempt, sweaty and the taxis disgustingly dirty inside. Their driving is often fatal.

I've maintained my sanity over the past decade by doing two things. Shopping with abandon at the supermarket to pretend I'm at Bloomingdale's. And taking taxis occasionally so I can sight see.

Years ago, at the height of my abandon, I met an old acquaintance standing in front of the refrigeration unit at a supermarket, inspecting the foreign fruit. We started chatting. I confessed I was not as rich as I once was and came to the supermarket to feel better. He replied that he'd never had it so good in his entire life. When he told me what he was earning I was sorry I'd even bothered to get a degree. He's a stand-up comic.

Today, a trip to the grocery store is not to be undertaken lightly. It is now on par with the light bill, which is no longer negligible. That monthly bill is now like the annual salary I used to earn.

As for the taxi fare, the less said the better. Only a lunatic could spend $350 on a one- way trip in Kingston for a lark, and the laundry bill afterwards.

Inflation and a lack of productivity are not the only reasons for our decline. To top it all are the deliberate victimisation of the people by the public sector, Government waste and rampant public corrup-tion. Incompetence is not to blame. I doubt it even counts.

Today, not even a 30-year-old can afford to move out of home. This began to happen in 1995 when the Patterson and Omar Davies' policies were already causing closures of small, medium and large businesses and the savaging of the domestic financial sector. Banks were closing because of the collapse of their customers' businesses and rising unemployment.

A decade of high interest rates were a termite upon the body politic. It was imposed by a political administration that wantonly printed money and created hyper inflation. It has yet to answer for the consequences. They reduced the country to a population whose greatest possible aspiration was a lump sum redundancy payment.

Today, middle-class young people cannot afford to purchase a house, much less rent a decent apartment, even with a million dollars a year in annual salary - not without parental help.

When one adds up the Jamaica Public Service Company bill, the Cable & Wireless bill, the food and laundry bill, and the helper's weekly wages, they're better off staying at home and saving their money. These bills together exceed $15,000-$20,000 a month.

Blue chip shares

Someone recently suggested that the 30-year-old would be better off using the money to buy some blue chip shares every month. Even with fluctuations in share prices you'll be far richer in five to 10 years.

Those who bought their homes for $25,000 in the late '60s and now find them worth $16 million to $20 million should fight like hell not to take a mortgage on them for their businesses. Those who did, lost their homes in the '90s. The lesson is clear. Never trust any Jamaican Government enough to put a mortgage on your place of abode. Not even an American one for that matter.

I say all this to point out to Madam Prime Minister that she has inherited a country rather the worse for wear and tear. Suicides, once a rarity, are now commonplace. The people despair, and the comics make money.

The unprecedented public debt and burdensome level of taxation, together with the catastrophic fall in the value of the Jamaican dollar all in the interest of creating more international reserves, beggars us all. We have become a shadow of our former selves.

The mystery is why there are not much longer lines outside the American, Canadian and British High Commissions. Jamaicans who have had enough, wish to emigrate. More mysterious still are all the Jamaican young people being educated at great private expense abroad by their parents here, and who can't wait to return. All of them will only earn a tiny fraction of what they could have had they remained overseas. Their favourite expression is "Nuh weh nuh bettah dan yard." They all have this feeling that upon their return, they will make a difference.

What is this distillation which so intoxicates us that we toss aside self-interest and all reason? The rum we imbibe must be a form of magic. Not only do we keenly desire to live in this vale of tears, but we sacrifice ourselves in order to remain here chased down by gunmen, laid off by closures, unable to meet expenses, and think it the greatest lifestyle on earth. Victims of collapse ourselves, our psychology has changed. We have adapted to disorder, and come to love Jamaica even more.

FOOTNOTE: Last week, guided by electronic and print reports, I wrote that the disgraceful behaviour of Opposition MPs in Parliament towards the Prime Minister was occasioned by the Sandals Whitehouse forensic report. The truth is even worse. The furor was over the so-called 'Hylton Report,' a document that was never submitted officially. It is even more appalling, therefore, that this is the basis upon which a prime minister is verbally assaulted.