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JLP government must prove its legitimacy in 2008
Wignall's WorldMark Wignall
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Mark Wignall
There comes a time in the life of a nation when admission must be made by its people that the nation is too deep in degradation and it will not be allowed to sink any deeper. Before such a position can be held and its reversal pursued with vigour, the common man and those who rule the economic roost must strike an agreement that Jamaica is home to all of us.
'Home' must mean sharing the same destiny, harbouring the same hope and feeling the same pain when we shed the blood of our children, women and young men. Home must conjure up more than just wood, water, sun and the taste of a juicy Otaheti apple.
It must also invoke the memory of those who gave their blood in the struggle to give us space and legitimacy and the right for us to claim prominence on 'Jamrock'.
Once it is accepted that Jamaica is home and home means that special place which needs our constant attention, care, protection and nurturing, there must be a change in the mindset of our people that for us to be proud of our homeland, changes must be made and those changes must be tackled now.
In truth, there will be some who will need to have the changes imposed on them simply because too many of us have become used to seeing Jamaica as that place where we can get away with every little action which derails any new push to nationhood.
Too many of our women spit in the streets. Many of our young men have grown up believing that nothing is wrong with urinating against a light post. Where the stud mentality is still very much alive, it produces a population of errant, absent fathers and young, teenage mothers barely able to feed the babies who, in exercising no choice, must enter a world where pain and poverty will be the twin 'gifts' presented to them.
Our more educated, economically sound and those privileged to claim 'old' money must involve themselves more. Most have done well through hard work, persistence, thrift and discipline. They have the choice of erecting higher fences and they will continue to do so for now because these are troubling times. But they must also realise that no nation can exist viably in our self-imposed 'apartness.'
To the extent that parenting as a natural skill has been lost over the last two generations and especially in the last one, the curriculum in schools must be extended to include this, as it must include simple social graces.
The typical Jamaican walking the streets hardly ever has a national ID card, even though about 85% of the population 18 years and over are in possession of a voter ID card. We need to go further. Our people are naturally stubborn and not easily given over to falling in line. Years ago when seat belts were introduced, I had my doubts as to their use among the majority of drivers. Well, I have been/am pleasantly surprised.
On any day one can observe that close to 100% of drivers use them.
'
National IDs carried on the person must be imposed as law. In the early processing, each person must be fingerprinted. And persons will be free to make their refusals. Once the whole process is complete and ID cards are issued, if a person is approached on the streets by a policeman and he/she cannot provide sound reason for not possessing a national ID, measures must be imposed to deal with those situations.
Many of our gunmen will not want to be fingerprinted. This will present our security forces with a smaller cohort of persons to whom special attention must be paid.
PRIME MINISTER GOLDING MUST LEAD THE CHARGE
In terms of performance, the JLP government which took power on September 3, 2007 has had a lukewarm show. Much of its focus was set on managing roadblocks set up by the reality of termites in the system. It is in the observations made of the JLP's first three months that have driven some of us to a firmer appreciation of the dangers of one party being in power for too long -18 years for the PNP (1989 to 2007).
In the 18 years of the PNP run, the tentacles of that party extended to every village, every corner shop, every civil service body and every other corporate boardroom. Somewhere along the way, maybe two years into the 2002-2007 administration, it dawned on the PNP that Jamaica belonged to it. After that, good governance suffered as all the PNP had to do was lie back and bask in its confirmed ownership.
Golding and his team must give back to governance the prominence it deserves. Governance of course must mean placing a stress on a workable, viable relationship between government and the people. In large measure, the JLP has still not divested itself of its 18 years in opposition. It cannot now be going to the people to ask, 'What is it I can do for you?'
The JLP has had 18 years to know the answer to that.
The people want first, a secure nation, free from the ravages of the enemy within. It wants its children to walk and play and be safe in doing so. The nation wants its children to be exposed to the best primary education that is possible. It wants the old, the infirm and the desperately poor to be afforded free health care and basic housing. It wants adequate and reliable water supplies in rural areas, repairs to arterial roads and protection against farm produce predators.
More than anything else, the nation wants its people to begin to believe in themselves again. At present we are the unwanted in the region. Even if we are welcomed at various ports in the Caribbean, there are always the eyes looking out for us as we are suspected of drug or gun-running. And of course the British authorities have decided that our proven behaviour in the past must mean that only very few of us will make that trip now or in the future.
We want to be that proud nation of people who figuratively sat at Norman Manley's feet as he declared in September 1968, "This is no time for fear. This is no time for doubt. But we have experience. We know where we are going and we should know what are the dangers that lie ahead."
In 2008, the JLP must take this nation on a rescue mission. A mission to provide Jamaica with the Jamaican dream. It will, of course, not happen in our time, but the dream must begin.
It sounds so clichéd, but the prime minister needs to engage the people more than he has in the latter part of 2007.
Some may even say that he has disengaged in many areas. In 2008, he must recognise that no economic newness can dawn on a people whose mindset is still locked into destructive behaviour.
He has to have his ministers move away from the politics of the past which was designed to maintain division and state power.
Unfortunately the PNP has provided us with a template of its 18-year run and there will be many in the JLP who will want to ape it.
In 2008, the JLP will have to convince us that its close-shave win was more than just the luck of the draw. It has to move beyond acting like a 'barely-win' party and take this nation by the scruff of its neck and do what we are paying it to do, provide leadership!
It is possible that sometime about mid-next year, certain events may force the JLP to go to the polls again. In my view, that could be the best move for the JLP. First, the nation which is not in the mood for any more elections will be seeing the PNP as the proximate cause of the ruckus. Second, it will likely bring about a significant lowering of the voter turnout but with a much higher percentage for the JLP, which will be in a better position to influence the vote and bring out the needed victory margin.
After that there can be no excuse or ********************footing on the part of Golding and his team. It must go full steam ahead.
ANOTHER MAN'S VIEW ON OLINT
In listening to movers and shakers and just plain business persons of all sizes, the view seems to be firmly on the side of Olint whenever alternative investment outlets are mentioned. There usually seem to be two separate discussions. One where Olint is singled out, and the other where the other bodies are mentioned.
One e-mail reader, an engineer by profession sent me his take on the matter.
'The crux of the matter is that the financial traditionalists... and the IMF are all hypocrites when it comes to their loud use of the phrase "market forces" in their vocabulary when it suits their interest for more profits for their rich cronies.
'They are hypocritically silent on the phrase "market forces" as the entrepreneurial drive and spirit of the young David Smith has driven them to ganging up on his investment club which concentrates solely on international FX/foreign currency trading.
'Thanks to David Smith, the ordinary Jamaican poor people are now at the centre of "market forces" in wisely saving/investing and saying "I would rather go with what generates more profit", instead of wasting their hard-earned savings on subsidising the banking traditionalists.
'The Bruce Golding administration will not need the IMF if it accepts David Smith's offer to do international FX/foreign currencies trading to help the government solve Jamaica's balance of trade problems as Australia has been wise to do.
'Of course, the IMF would not like this, as this would render the IMF redundant and put IMF employees/economists out of work, and out of the business of wrecking the lives of ordinary Jamaican people while making the rich richer.
'The rich and the IMF blame the poor for being poor but, ironically, when the poor try to help themselves to get out of poverty via their freedom of choice of saving/investing with investment clubs like David Smith's OLINT, the rich... banking/financial traditionalists, and IMF engage in ganging up his investment club, which concentrates solely on international FX/ foreign currencies trading.
'I have rigorously researched and compared hedge fund multi-disciplined, multi-strategies, commodities options and futures, and various investment securities over a long period, since having been forced by the IMF's failed and disagreeable policies into leaving my rural and suburban island home of Jamaica in 1991.
'This was after 16 years involved in interdisciplinary engineering and international FX/foreign currencies participation, design-and-manufacturing technical and quality services general management in the local and international business of steering expansion and profitability for intellectual property/patent owners/operators manufacturing business enterprise of England and Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, Asia and Japan, Jamaica, Canada, and the United States.
'I have represented and diversified the services of firms involved in engineering and manufacturing representatives and major financial institutions in Jamaica, for finance, utilities, basic industry, metal construction, mining, chemicals, and paper products sector applications, as well as technology, industrials and multi-industrials, and consumer cyclicals applications, consumer cyclicals (packaged foods and beverages, pharmaceuticals, tobacco manufacturing applications and agricultural needs, defence, intelligence, national security, government community, civil, education, and commercial sectors applications.
'After a total of 32 years serving across these sectors in various capacities, I must conclude that David Smith's OLINT investment club model is the best, most wise, and pragmatic choice of saving/investing for the ordinary Jamaican and poor people to help themselves to a much better life.'
COMMISSIONER LEWIN MUST STEM THE INFLOW OF GUNS
It is taken as a given that no crime plan which hopes to succeed can do so without focus on our coastline and on normal luggage and cargo entering Jamaica.
At the best of times our 'fleet' of coastguard vessels in no more than three, very inadequate and alone, unable to patrol even just the coastline of Westmoreland, Manchester, St Elizabeth and Clarendon.
One on-line reader has made some suggestions which appear to be to be very workable.
'We have for too long shied away from solutions that bring parallel inconvenience. Someone has convinced us that progress and development is not difficult and that they should not take us out of our comfort zones of fantasy! Who hath brainwashed you, Jamaica?
Hence, solutions that require us to give up our fantasies are often rejected. But if the flow of illegal guns is to cease, a change of heart and mind is vital.
HOW ILLEGAL GUNS AND AMMUNITION ENTER JAMAICA
'It is no mystery how the illegal guns and ammunition enter Jamaica. Let us list the options which are available:
1. Barrels shipped by means of shipping companies;
2. Air freight cargo;
3. In commercial goods and equipment;
4. Mail parcels and packages;
5. Luggage carried by airline passengers;
6. Illegal boats and ganja airplanes;
7. Clandestine security agencies of foreign governments.
8. From rogue cops and soldiers who have infiltrated the security forces.
STRATEGY NUMBER ONE; CUTTING OFF THE GUN-RUNNING BOATS
'CREATE A WEB-BASED COMPUTERISED LIST OF ALL BOATS.
First, if it has not been done already, all motorised boat owners should be registered with a monitoring agency and placed where the list can be accessed through a password-secured procedure, by security officers. A government web site would be ideal.
'USE A VISIBLE LETTER CODE PAINTED ON EVERY BOAT.
These boats should be identified by a lettering or number code painted in large block letters on both sides and visible from hundreds of feet away.
'SOLDIERS AND POLICE TO MAN THE PATROL BOATS.
We should deploy troops from Up Park Camp permanently to help monitor those parts of the coast line which are susceptible to illegal intrusions from the sea. These troops would have at their disposal, sufficient motorised boats capable of patrolling the entire coastline, powerful binoculars, walkie- talkies for communication, loudspeakers and should have local police officers on board so arrests can be made when necessary. This would create an impenetrable curtain for gun smugglers if we had one boat for every 20 miles of coast line. This would take 10 boats for the south coast which is approximately 200 miles long.
'A MOBILE LAND FORCE TO BACK UP THE PATROL BOATS.
This would be necessary to interdict any smugglers who escaped the patrol boats.
'CONTACT ALL COMPANIES WHO SHIP GOODS TO JAMAICA.
Identify all the companies who ship barrels into the island and write them a letter demanding to be educated on the steps they take to ensure that barrels which they ship are free from guns and ammunition and other illegal contraband. Can you imagine these companies know how drastic the crime situation is on the island, yet they have no procedure in place to ensure that illegal goods are not packed in the barrels? Ridiculous!
'SHIPPING COMPANIES SHOULD BE FINED WHEN ILLEGAL GOODS ARE FOUND IN THEIR CONTAINERS'
This is obviously nothing new to the new commissioner who has signalled quite early that he means business. So far, the only thing which is scary about the commissioner is him saying that he wants to make the JCF the best police force in the world. Whew!
Commissioner, I admire your guts even if we are about one generation away from having even a 'decent' JCF. Whatever the grand objectives may be, new inflow of guns must be cut off as we deal with the murderous pack within our shores.
I wish you all the very best for 2008.
observemark@gmail.com
Wignall's WorldMark Wignall
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Mark Wignall There comes a time in the life of a nation when admission must be made by its people that the nation is too deep in degradation and it will not be allowed to sink any deeper. Before such a position can be held and its reversal pursued with vigour, the common man and those who rule the economic roost must strike an agreement that Jamaica is home to all of us.
'Home' must mean sharing the same destiny, harbouring the same hope and feeling the same pain when we shed the blood of our children, women and young men. Home must conjure up more than just wood, water, sun and the taste of a juicy Otaheti apple.
It must also invoke the memory of those who gave their blood in the struggle to give us space and legitimacy and the right for us to claim prominence on 'Jamrock'.
Once it is accepted that Jamaica is home and home means that special place which needs our constant attention, care, protection and nurturing, there must be a change in the mindset of our people that for us to be proud of our homeland, changes must be made and those changes must be tackled now.
In truth, there will be some who will need to have the changes imposed on them simply because too many of us have become used to seeing Jamaica as that place where we can get away with every little action which derails any new push to nationhood.
Too many of our women spit in the streets. Many of our young men have grown up believing that nothing is wrong with urinating against a light post. Where the stud mentality is still very much alive, it produces a population of errant, absent fathers and young, teenage mothers barely able to feed the babies who, in exercising no choice, must enter a world where pain and poverty will be the twin 'gifts' presented to them.
Our more educated, economically sound and those privileged to claim 'old' money must involve themselves more. Most have done well through hard work, persistence, thrift and discipline. They have the choice of erecting higher fences and they will continue to do so for now because these are troubling times. But they must also realise that no nation can exist viably in our self-imposed 'apartness.'
To the extent that parenting as a natural skill has been lost over the last two generations and especially in the last one, the curriculum in schools must be extended to include this, as it must include simple social graces.
The typical Jamaican walking the streets hardly ever has a national ID card, even though about 85% of the population 18 years and over are in possession of a voter ID card. We need to go further. Our people are naturally stubborn and not easily given over to falling in line. Years ago when seat belts were introduced, I had my doubts as to their use among the majority of drivers. Well, I have been/am pleasantly surprised.
On any day one can observe that close to 100% of drivers use them.
'
National IDs carried on the person must be imposed as law. In the early processing, each person must be fingerprinted. And persons will be free to make their refusals. Once the whole process is complete and ID cards are issued, if a person is approached on the streets by a policeman and he/she cannot provide sound reason for not possessing a national ID, measures must be imposed to deal with those situations.
Many of our gunmen will not want to be fingerprinted. This will present our security forces with a smaller cohort of persons to whom special attention must be paid.
PRIME MINISTER GOLDING MUST LEAD THE CHARGE
In terms of performance, the JLP government which took power on September 3, 2007 has had a lukewarm show. Much of its focus was set on managing roadblocks set up by the reality of termites in the system. It is in the observations made of the JLP's first three months that have driven some of us to a firmer appreciation of the dangers of one party being in power for too long -18 years for the PNP (1989 to 2007).
In the 18 years of the PNP run, the tentacles of that party extended to every village, every corner shop, every civil service body and every other corporate boardroom. Somewhere along the way, maybe two years into the 2002-2007 administration, it dawned on the PNP that Jamaica belonged to it. After that, good governance suffered as all the PNP had to do was lie back and bask in its confirmed ownership.
Golding and his team must give back to governance the prominence it deserves. Governance of course must mean placing a stress on a workable, viable relationship between government and the people. In large measure, the JLP has still not divested itself of its 18 years in opposition. It cannot now be going to the people to ask, 'What is it I can do for you?'
The JLP has had 18 years to know the answer to that.
The people want first, a secure nation, free from the ravages of the enemy within. It wants its children to walk and play and be safe in doing so. The nation wants its children to be exposed to the best primary education that is possible. It wants the old, the infirm and the desperately poor to be afforded free health care and basic housing. It wants adequate and reliable water supplies in rural areas, repairs to arterial roads and protection against farm produce predators.
More than anything else, the nation wants its people to begin to believe in themselves again. At present we are the unwanted in the region. Even if we are welcomed at various ports in the Caribbean, there are always the eyes looking out for us as we are suspected of drug or gun-running. And of course the British authorities have decided that our proven behaviour in the past must mean that only very few of us will make that trip now or in the future.
We want to be that proud nation of people who figuratively sat at Norman Manley's feet as he declared in September 1968, "This is no time for fear. This is no time for doubt. But we have experience. We know where we are going and we should know what are the dangers that lie ahead."
In 2008, the JLP must take this nation on a rescue mission. A mission to provide Jamaica with the Jamaican dream. It will, of course, not happen in our time, but the dream must begin.
It sounds so clichéd, but the prime minister needs to engage the people more than he has in the latter part of 2007.
Some may even say that he has disengaged in many areas. In 2008, he must recognise that no economic newness can dawn on a people whose mindset is still locked into destructive behaviour.
He has to have his ministers move away from the politics of the past which was designed to maintain division and state power.
Unfortunately the PNP has provided us with a template of its 18-year run and there will be many in the JLP who will want to ape it.
In 2008, the JLP will have to convince us that its close-shave win was more than just the luck of the draw. It has to move beyond acting like a 'barely-win' party and take this nation by the scruff of its neck and do what we are paying it to do, provide leadership!
It is possible that sometime about mid-next year, certain events may force the JLP to go to the polls again. In my view, that could be the best move for the JLP. First, the nation which is not in the mood for any more elections will be seeing the PNP as the proximate cause of the ruckus. Second, it will likely bring about a significant lowering of the voter turnout but with a much higher percentage for the JLP, which will be in a better position to influence the vote and bring out the needed victory margin.
After that there can be no excuse or ********************footing on the part of Golding and his team. It must go full steam ahead.
ANOTHER MAN'S VIEW ON OLINT
In listening to movers and shakers and just plain business persons of all sizes, the view seems to be firmly on the side of Olint whenever alternative investment outlets are mentioned. There usually seem to be two separate discussions. One where Olint is singled out, and the other where the other bodies are mentioned.
One e-mail reader, an engineer by profession sent me his take on the matter.
'The crux of the matter is that the financial traditionalists... and the IMF are all hypocrites when it comes to their loud use of the phrase "market forces" in their vocabulary when it suits their interest for more profits for their rich cronies.
'They are hypocritically silent on the phrase "market forces" as the entrepreneurial drive and spirit of the young David Smith has driven them to ganging up on his investment club which concentrates solely on international FX/foreign currency trading.
'Thanks to David Smith, the ordinary Jamaican poor people are now at the centre of "market forces" in wisely saving/investing and saying "I would rather go with what generates more profit", instead of wasting their hard-earned savings on subsidising the banking traditionalists.
'The Bruce Golding administration will not need the IMF if it accepts David Smith's offer to do international FX/foreign currencies trading to help the government solve Jamaica's balance of trade problems as Australia has been wise to do.
'Of course, the IMF would not like this, as this would render the IMF redundant and put IMF employees/economists out of work, and out of the business of wrecking the lives of ordinary Jamaican people while making the rich richer.
'The rich and the IMF blame the poor for being poor but, ironically, when the poor try to help themselves to get out of poverty via their freedom of choice of saving/investing with investment clubs like David Smith's OLINT, the rich... banking/financial traditionalists, and IMF engage in ganging up his investment club, which concentrates solely on international FX/ foreign currencies trading.
'I have rigorously researched and compared hedge fund multi-disciplined, multi-strategies, commodities options and futures, and various investment securities over a long period, since having been forced by the IMF's failed and disagreeable policies into leaving my rural and suburban island home of Jamaica in 1991.
'This was after 16 years involved in interdisciplinary engineering and international FX/foreign currencies participation, design-and-manufacturing technical and quality services general management in the local and international business of steering expansion and profitability for intellectual property/patent owners/operators manufacturing business enterprise of England and Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Germany, Asia and Japan, Jamaica, Canada, and the United States.
'I have represented and diversified the services of firms involved in engineering and manufacturing representatives and major financial institutions in Jamaica, for finance, utilities, basic industry, metal construction, mining, chemicals, and paper products sector applications, as well as technology, industrials and multi-industrials, and consumer cyclicals applications, consumer cyclicals (packaged foods and beverages, pharmaceuticals, tobacco manufacturing applications and agricultural needs, defence, intelligence, national security, government community, civil, education, and commercial sectors applications.
'After a total of 32 years serving across these sectors in various capacities, I must conclude that David Smith's OLINT investment club model is the best, most wise, and pragmatic choice of saving/investing for the ordinary Jamaican and poor people to help themselves to a much better life.'
COMMISSIONER LEWIN MUST STEM THE INFLOW OF GUNS
It is taken as a given that no crime plan which hopes to succeed can do so without focus on our coastline and on normal luggage and cargo entering Jamaica.
At the best of times our 'fleet' of coastguard vessels in no more than three, very inadequate and alone, unable to patrol even just the coastline of Westmoreland, Manchester, St Elizabeth and Clarendon.
One on-line reader has made some suggestions which appear to be to be very workable.
'We have for too long shied away from solutions that bring parallel inconvenience. Someone has convinced us that progress and development is not difficult and that they should not take us out of our comfort zones of fantasy! Who hath brainwashed you, Jamaica?
Hence, solutions that require us to give up our fantasies are often rejected. But if the flow of illegal guns is to cease, a change of heart and mind is vital.
HOW ILLEGAL GUNS AND AMMUNITION ENTER JAMAICA
'It is no mystery how the illegal guns and ammunition enter Jamaica. Let us list the options which are available:
1. Barrels shipped by means of shipping companies;
2. Air freight cargo;
3. In commercial goods and equipment;
4. Mail parcels and packages;
5. Luggage carried by airline passengers;
6. Illegal boats and ganja airplanes;
7. Clandestine security agencies of foreign governments.
8. From rogue cops and soldiers who have infiltrated the security forces.
STRATEGY NUMBER ONE; CUTTING OFF THE GUN-RUNNING BOATS
'CREATE A WEB-BASED COMPUTERISED LIST OF ALL BOATS.
First, if it has not been done already, all motorised boat owners should be registered with a monitoring agency and placed where the list can be accessed through a password-secured procedure, by security officers. A government web site would be ideal.
'USE A VISIBLE LETTER CODE PAINTED ON EVERY BOAT.
These boats should be identified by a lettering or number code painted in large block letters on both sides and visible from hundreds of feet away.
'SOLDIERS AND POLICE TO MAN THE PATROL BOATS.
We should deploy troops from Up Park Camp permanently to help monitor those parts of the coast line which are susceptible to illegal intrusions from the sea. These troops would have at their disposal, sufficient motorised boats capable of patrolling the entire coastline, powerful binoculars, walkie- talkies for communication, loudspeakers and should have local police officers on board so arrests can be made when necessary. This would create an impenetrable curtain for gun smugglers if we had one boat for every 20 miles of coast line. This would take 10 boats for the south coast which is approximately 200 miles long.
'A MOBILE LAND FORCE TO BACK UP THE PATROL BOATS.
This would be necessary to interdict any smugglers who escaped the patrol boats.
'CONTACT ALL COMPANIES WHO SHIP GOODS TO JAMAICA.
Identify all the companies who ship barrels into the island and write them a letter demanding to be educated on the steps they take to ensure that barrels which they ship are free from guns and ammunition and other illegal contraband. Can you imagine these companies know how drastic the crime situation is on the island, yet they have no procedure in place to ensure that illegal goods are not packed in the barrels? Ridiculous!
'SHIPPING COMPANIES SHOULD BE FINED WHEN ILLEGAL GOODS ARE FOUND IN THEIR CONTAINERS'
This is obviously nothing new to the new commissioner who has signalled quite early that he means business. So far, the only thing which is scary about the commissioner is him saying that he wants to make the JCF the best police force in the world. Whew!
Commissioner, I admire your guts even if we are about one generation away from having even a 'decent' JCF. Whatever the grand objectives may be, new inflow of guns must be cut off as we deal with the murderous pack within our shores.
I wish you all the very best for 2008.
observemark@gmail.com
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