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The anti-business PNP Government
Wignall's World
Mark Wignall
Sunday, August 12, 2007
If governments existed merely to support the whims and fancies of rich and poor, every dispossessed young man hanging on the corner with his idle friends would be throwing a big party every other weekend, and every rich man would have another big yacht in the harbour fully stocked with provisions and his choice of avant-garde company.
Although we know that the role of government is to facilitate the people's well-being and happiness, to the extent that people can be made happy with adequate food, clothing and shelter, any government's initial objective should be to facilitate an economic atmosphere where those basic needs can be achieved.
If we examine the process by which, say, a gully is left to gather slime, stagnant water, overgrown bush and the breeding of mosquitoes, it will be seen that the cost of fixing the myriad problems which could arise from such an omission may be huge in comparison to the government facilitating an atmosphere where the rich can access, at will, lobster and white wine.
It may cost a million dollars per year to clean the gully, but $10 million to employ huge earth-moving equipment and foggers to spray the area and medical personnel to test for malaria.
It is therefore quite possible for the poor (and the rich) to live mosquito-free while the rich man indulges himself on expensive sea food and French wine. The problem with this administration is that too much of its focus over the last 18 years has been on creating an atmosphere where problems seem to have been deliberately grown to a level to make fixing them economically feasible. In other words, the administration exists to provide space and success for its cronies. Everything else which does not fit into that model falls naturally to the bottom of the priority list.
In my column last week Sunday, which focused on the travails of Century National Bank, I had put forward the view that the PNP administration which entered office in 1989 was in essence a bunch of old pseudo-socialists - and that includes Dr Omar Davies, the finance minister - who were square-holed thinkers trying to operate a round-holed economy. By this I meant that they were at best too rigid in their thought processes and, at the worst, they were hopelessly unfamiliar with a market-driven economy.
A man who is 'pseudo' anything is but a shadow of that thing or an impostor parading as if he is comfortable with his role. The play-play socialists of the era of the 1970s did not all die out politically by the time the JLP wiped out the PNP government in the October 1980 election. It must be remembered that as persons like Dr DK Duncan in the PNP and Dr Trevor Munroe in the communist Workers Party of Jamaica (WPJ) spoke in hostile terms against capitalism, 'profit' became an expletive. Little did Michael Manley know that as he introduced his 'democratic socialism' path in 1974, many would have been the willing followers in his party hierarchy, but with other objectives.
Politics becomes Religion
To many in the top echelons of the PNP Government of the 1970s, governance became easier after Manley 'embarked' on his democratic socialist path in 1974. Theoretically, the objectives were anything but increasing the size of the national pie as much as it was giving a greater slice to the dispossessed.
But in the PNP Government trying to manoeuvre its way through a dormant private sector and a population too eager to hear the next words of Michael Manley, the PNP leader seemed to have unwittingly unleashed on the nation a group of men and women in the 'lunatic left' of the PNP who then found reason to preach the new politics as religion.
Religion is supposed to be the search for and the harnessing and the teaching of God and goodness. That ought to be the first and ultimate objective of religion. In reality religion's second objective makes a mockery of the first, and that is, the relegation of God to second place while 'religion' becomes the new deity. In this approach, the preacher becomes the earthly divinity and his self-imposed role as intercessor becomes blurred in the mix.
Like the preacher who has no date when the burden of proof will bring about either his demise or his divinity, the politician who has no ideas on building a nation will easily find reason to preach from his platform the creation of a new Jerusalem.
In the 1970s, literature out of Trevor Munroe's WPJ spoke not just disparagingly about capital and capitalists but it was in fact hostile towards business, as communists were at the time. It found a willing ear in the PNP Government after 1974.
Many were those in the PNP who adopted the approach of preaching this new, far-fetched political philosophy, this religion, because it was much easier to fill people's heads with envy of the possessions of others than it was to provide the country with an atmosphere where they could feed themselves, educate their children and live a better life. Between 1974 and 1980, the operative words in the society were 'fear' and 'hate,' and the PNP was in the forefront of laying out this rough carpet right across the nation.
Michael Manley's poor management of his policies, along with the backlash his undiplomatic rhetoric earned him in Washington, made life here in Jamaica a most unpleasant experience, especially between the period 1976 to 1980. While persons like Arnold Bertram, Danny Buchanan, DK Duncan and others in the PNP and Trevor Munroe in the WPJ spouted their socialist/communist crap and pushed the idea of the government taking over 'the commanding heights of the economy', the eager young and the uneducated old in the society hopped on board and made these men into earthly gods.
No one in the PNP spoke about increasing the size of the pie. No one saw business as being the ultimate ideal in a real world. All they saw and seemed to have appreciated were the awesome power of the governmental machinery and the docile nature of a generally uneducated mass. If they could not bring bread to the table of this mass, certainly their guts could be filled with 'socialism' and the hate for the possessions of the man who worked hard all of his life to make himself comfortable.
Hail to the memory of Carlton Alexander
Our society has produced quite a number of no-nonsense men who were, at important junctures in our history, unafraid to stand up against rot and big government and make their voices heard. In my teenage years in the 1960s, I was fortunate to have come under the guidance (too brief) of Percival Gibson, founder of Kingston College and Anglican Bishop of Jamaica. 'Priest', as he was known, was physically a small man. After that observation of him, it was the wise man who knew that everything else about 'Priest' was large, big, powerful.
He took on the powers that be, and when he spoke, his voice thundered across the island with its radios, no television sets, and word-of-mouth communication modes. In all humility I believe that I have learned something from Bishop Gibson.
Another giant of a man was the late Carlton Alexander, head of GraceKennedy and founder of the PSOJ in the mid-1970s. At a time when the PNP had lost his way and men in the lunatic left of that party were flexing their muscles against 'capitalists', mostly out of envy, Carlton Alexander stood up and said enough was enough. The PSOJ was born then.
I am not here making out a case for the wholesale endorsing of every businessman in Jamaica. Too many at the time were sole 'commission agents' making guaranteed profits while being extremely inefficient. Others were socially aloof and engaged in corrupt business practices, had 'green cards' and were living here with one foot stretching across the South Atlantic and planted in Florida. They had no real loyalties to Jamaica. The majority were, however, men and women who had the country's interests at heart.
To the PNP of the 1970s, they did not matter. That Michael Manley could have burst upon the scene in 1972 with so much goodwill stored up for him, then squander it all with his poorly managed socio-political experimentation, told me that politicians are their own worst enemies.
When Manley marched on The Gleaner in the late 1970s, The Gleaner was seen as one of the most powerful representatives of the business class. When Manley threatened in earshot of all, "Next time, next time", many took that to mean that he, Michael Manley, wanted to secure a genuine mandate on a fully blown socialist ticket and at that 'next time' The Gleaner and big business would quake and be no more.
It was into that troubling socio-political melee that Carlton Alexander waded. While his style of dealing with politicians gone drunk on power was different from the approach of 'Priest', it was still effective. Where 'Priest' in the 1950s and 1960s was the moral voice of the nation thundering from his diminutive frame, Carlton Alexander was the strategist, recognising the dangers of political power gone wild. He entered the maze, completed the circuit and assisted in neutering the power of the PNP in 1980.
Enter the Dragon in 1989
As I have said before, even if the complement of those who formed the PNP administration in 1989 were not all the same as in the 1970s, the political outlook was similar to the 1970s. We had seen Manley as the man who had mucked up between 1974 and 1980, and though we still loved him, by the end of the decade he was a liability to the nation.
The Seaga administration of 1980 to 1989 had begun to register five per cent annual growth in its last five years. Unknown to Seaga, a workaholic and a cold man to all but his inner circle of friends and with an imperious approach to leadership when he was voted out in 1989, it was simply because he was not liked by the people. It was easy, therefore, to view him as the 'fixer'.
Once the 'fixer' had got it right, it was easy to recall the 'lover'. In re-electing Michael Manley, this nation proved that it was not ready for real government. First, the memories of the turbulent 1970s were still fresh in the minds of the people, yet they elected Manley. Is it that the people were mad or stupid or both?
The fact is, even though in the 1970s we were able to say that it was 'Manley's fault', by the time the end of the decade of the 1980s rolled around we were able to admit, somewhat confusingly that it wasn't really Manley's fault, it was those in the lunatic left of the PNP and the WPJ.
We recall that immediately on taking office, the PNP engaged us in its first of many scandals, the 'Furniture Scandal' where newly made ministers decided to stock up on new, extremely expensive furniture for their government-sponsored houses. Were we smart people, we would have recognised that that is the true measure of pseudo-socialists, feathering their own nests, or at least making them comfortable.
The biggest consideration at that time was the perceived change in the interface between business and the new, 'reformed' PNP administration. The demise of Century National Bank (CNB), the experience of the Paul Chen-Young entity, the Eagle Merchant Bank, and the meltdown of the financial sector were all proof that the PNP had merely changed its outer garments.
Hugh Small would have made a
better finance minister
Much of the meltdown which occurred in the mid-1990s was due to two factors. While Hugh Small was finance minister, there was some indication that good sense would prevail. Consequent on Michael Manley stepping down due to ill health, a vacancy arose. In the PNP presidency race of 1992, DK Duncan and Hugh Small were the team leaders backing Portia Simpson against PJ Patterson.
Just before that contest, the PNP was into scandal number three (the first two were the Furniture and Zinc scandals) which became known as the Shell Waiver Scandal. A man named Howard Hamilton was the general manager of Shell in Jamaica. Like all the oil companies operating here, Shell imported its fuel and it so happened that it sought a governmental waiver on duties that it was mandated to pay on the import.
Shell requested the waiver and got it from the respective minister, PJ Patterson. It would have been all well and we could have claimed that it was the privilege of PJ Patterson to grant the waiver based on his own best considerations on behalf of the country. Whatever his decision was based on, it turned out that Howard Hamilton, general manager of Shell in Jamaica, was a member of the PNP's National Executive Council (NEC).
At that time, Manley was livid. PJ Patterson resigned, but he fired back, "I shall return", and return he did. Prior to the contest, Hugh Small, not a man to mince words, told a JBC-TV reporter (either Cliff Hughes or the late Hugh Crosskill) that "Mr Patterson still has unanswered questions on the Shell Waiver matter," or words which meant the same.
When Mr Patterson secured his own mandate in March 1993, Hugh Small was out and the nation was introduced to a man who would epitomise the PNP's failure in its approach to business, Dr Omar Davies.
Little did we know that when Michael Manley spoke about controlling 'the commanding heights of the economy' his followers would identify his instructions for a later time. All we have to do to enumerate this is to take a good look at the mid-level entrepreneurial class which began its push in the 1980s and was almost totally wiped out under the watch of Omar Davies in the late 1990s.
Enter 'restructuring' and beyond
That Finance Minister Omar Davies still has the temerity to make public comment on the financial sector is a shocker to me. Remember now, he was the same minister who told his followers in early 2003 that there was no way in which the PNP Government would lessen its spending in an election year.
The PNP chose instead to 'run with it', and further impoverish the nation just so that it could win an election. It was corrupt because it happened, and doubly corrupt that he admitted it and was rewarded. His reward was in getting to keep his job.
In any other self-respecting country he would have been fired or, if he was sufficiently moved to admit something decent inside of him, he would have resigned.
This, of course, is Jamaica where our people conveniently fall asleep where governmental corruption rears its ugly head. Omar Davies knows this, and his prime minister at the time, the laid-back and oftentimes innocuous PJ Patterson, is very well aware of this.
In the aftermath of Finsac, almost the entire mid-level entrepreneurial class has been neutered or wiped out by the monetary policies of the PNP. One businessman I know told me he borrowed $5 million, paid back $15 million and still owed $55 million.
Mr Godfrey Dyer told a gathering recently that from a loan amount of $15 million in 1992, when he eventually repaid it, the total paid was $157 million!
Another businessman I know, a professional in construction, after wending his way though the dangerous financial maze of the 1990s, secured a loan for $5 million in 1993, paid back $62 million and still owed $28 million.
In 1997 when FINSAC was brought about, it was showing his loan balance at $46 million. In April of 2007, the Jamaica Redevelopment Foundation Inc (JRF), that foreign company that had purchased the Finsac portfolio for 20 cents on the dollar, sent him a bill for outstanding loan amount. The figure, $398 million.
Another man who is a professional in his field purchased a house in the 1980s for $60,000. After sleepless nights trying to solve his outstanding loans with JRF he received a call from a friend who told him that he had seen his house up for auction in the press. In a rush he headed to the auction.
"I am certain that the sale would have settled out at about $30 million. Then the auctioneer deliberately paused the proceedings after which another bidder entered. The bid was restarted and the newcomer drove up the price to $45 million. Mr. Wignall, I was forced to buy back my house for $45 million! All of my relatives and some friends chipped in. I have set off some of my unfinished housing units against the money they provided me. Not only that, but in the first few hours of the sale I had to find 25 per cent of the sale price," he said while close to tears.
Selling off Jamaica
In the aftermath of the PNP's sojourn in our life from 1989 to now, countries like Trinidad and Barbados have been the richer. We have sold our banks to Trinidad and Tobago and our life insurance companies to Barbados. For one payment these countries snatched up important pieces of our economic patrimony while each quarter they take money out of Jamaica to enrich their own people.
And while we do this, behind the scenes, thousands of our home-grown nationals are being bled to death by companies like JRF. Now JRF is in business like every other entity, but even it must admit that a sweeter deal has never been had. As JRF sells off the assets like that businessman's house for $45 million, the Government gets a small cut and the vast majority is repatriated to the good ol' United States.
We sold the Cement Company to the Trinidadians because we say the company was in trouble and needed funds for expansion. Well, the Cement Company produced rotten cement last year and even said it wanted an increase. Anyone who operates that company would have to be a fool to lose money. The raw material is right there on top of the company, it has a captive market, it is close to the docks and customers are always lining up outside with managers' cheques to purchase the material. But, we sold that off.
It took Mutual Life 160 years to arrive at where it was in the 1990s. Not to worry, though. In a matter of a song and a whistle, it was sold off to foreigners.
When the history of the era of the 1990s is finally written, the PNP Government and Omar Davies' tenure will be lambasted for their recklessness and what appears to be their hostility to business.
My own view is that they have shown this hostility simply because there are few people in the PNP Cabinet who do not have to meet a pay-bill at the end of the week or month. I also believe that a lot of it is just plain envy and is a throwback to the 1970s when they were preaching class warfare and hate. To me, the 1990s and beyond is their attempt to catch up on what was considered incomplete in the 1970s.
When a study is done of Finsac and its aftermath, only then will the people of this country be made aware of the thousands of hard-working Jamaicans who have been brought to their knees by the evil policies of this administration.
observemark@gmail.com
Wignall's World
Mark Wignall
Sunday, August 12, 2007
If governments existed merely to support the whims and fancies of rich and poor, every dispossessed young man hanging on the corner with his idle friends would be throwing a big party every other weekend, and every rich man would have another big yacht in the harbour fully stocked with provisions and his choice of avant-garde company.
Although we know that the role of government is to facilitate the people's well-being and happiness, to the extent that people can be made happy with adequate food, clothing and shelter, any government's initial objective should be to facilitate an economic atmosphere where those basic needs can be achieved.
If we examine the process by which, say, a gully is left to gather slime, stagnant water, overgrown bush and the breeding of mosquitoes, it will be seen that the cost of fixing the myriad problems which could arise from such an omission may be huge in comparison to the government facilitating an atmosphere where the rich can access, at will, lobster and white wine.
It may cost a million dollars per year to clean the gully, but $10 million to employ huge earth-moving equipment and foggers to spray the area and medical personnel to test for malaria.
It is therefore quite possible for the poor (and the rich) to live mosquito-free while the rich man indulges himself on expensive sea food and French wine. The problem with this administration is that too much of its focus over the last 18 years has been on creating an atmosphere where problems seem to have been deliberately grown to a level to make fixing them economically feasible. In other words, the administration exists to provide space and success for its cronies. Everything else which does not fit into that model falls naturally to the bottom of the priority list.
In my column last week Sunday, which focused on the travails of Century National Bank, I had put forward the view that the PNP administration which entered office in 1989 was in essence a bunch of old pseudo-socialists - and that includes Dr Omar Davies, the finance minister - who were square-holed thinkers trying to operate a round-holed economy. By this I meant that they were at best too rigid in their thought processes and, at the worst, they were hopelessly unfamiliar with a market-driven economy.
A man who is 'pseudo' anything is but a shadow of that thing or an impostor parading as if he is comfortable with his role. The play-play socialists of the era of the 1970s did not all die out politically by the time the JLP wiped out the PNP government in the October 1980 election. It must be remembered that as persons like Dr DK Duncan in the PNP and Dr Trevor Munroe in the communist Workers Party of Jamaica (WPJ) spoke in hostile terms against capitalism, 'profit' became an expletive. Little did Michael Manley know that as he introduced his 'democratic socialism' path in 1974, many would have been the willing followers in his party hierarchy, but with other objectives.
Politics becomes Religion
To many in the top echelons of the PNP Government of the 1970s, governance became easier after Manley 'embarked' on his democratic socialist path in 1974. Theoretically, the objectives were anything but increasing the size of the national pie as much as it was giving a greater slice to the dispossessed.
But in the PNP Government trying to manoeuvre its way through a dormant private sector and a population too eager to hear the next words of Michael Manley, the PNP leader seemed to have unwittingly unleashed on the nation a group of men and women in the 'lunatic left' of the PNP who then found reason to preach the new politics as religion.
Religion is supposed to be the search for and the harnessing and the teaching of God and goodness. That ought to be the first and ultimate objective of religion. In reality religion's second objective makes a mockery of the first, and that is, the relegation of God to second place while 'religion' becomes the new deity. In this approach, the preacher becomes the earthly divinity and his self-imposed role as intercessor becomes blurred in the mix.
Like the preacher who has no date when the burden of proof will bring about either his demise or his divinity, the politician who has no ideas on building a nation will easily find reason to preach from his platform the creation of a new Jerusalem.
In the 1970s, literature out of Trevor Munroe's WPJ spoke not just disparagingly about capital and capitalists but it was in fact hostile towards business, as communists were at the time. It found a willing ear in the PNP Government after 1974.
Many were those in the PNP who adopted the approach of preaching this new, far-fetched political philosophy, this religion, because it was much easier to fill people's heads with envy of the possessions of others than it was to provide the country with an atmosphere where they could feed themselves, educate their children and live a better life. Between 1974 and 1980, the operative words in the society were 'fear' and 'hate,' and the PNP was in the forefront of laying out this rough carpet right across the nation.
Michael Manley's poor management of his policies, along with the backlash his undiplomatic rhetoric earned him in Washington, made life here in Jamaica a most unpleasant experience, especially between the period 1976 to 1980. While persons like Arnold Bertram, Danny Buchanan, DK Duncan and others in the PNP and Trevor Munroe in the WPJ spouted their socialist/communist crap and pushed the idea of the government taking over 'the commanding heights of the economy', the eager young and the uneducated old in the society hopped on board and made these men into earthly gods.
No one in the PNP spoke about increasing the size of the pie. No one saw business as being the ultimate ideal in a real world. All they saw and seemed to have appreciated were the awesome power of the governmental machinery and the docile nature of a generally uneducated mass. If they could not bring bread to the table of this mass, certainly their guts could be filled with 'socialism' and the hate for the possessions of the man who worked hard all of his life to make himself comfortable.
Hail to the memory of Carlton Alexander
Our society has produced quite a number of no-nonsense men who were, at important junctures in our history, unafraid to stand up against rot and big government and make their voices heard. In my teenage years in the 1960s, I was fortunate to have come under the guidance (too brief) of Percival Gibson, founder of Kingston College and Anglican Bishop of Jamaica. 'Priest', as he was known, was physically a small man. After that observation of him, it was the wise man who knew that everything else about 'Priest' was large, big, powerful.
He took on the powers that be, and when he spoke, his voice thundered across the island with its radios, no television sets, and word-of-mouth communication modes. In all humility I believe that I have learned something from Bishop Gibson.
Another giant of a man was the late Carlton Alexander, head of GraceKennedy and founder of the PSOJ in the mid-1970s. At a time when the PNP had lost his way and men in the lunatic left of that party were flexing their muscles against 'capitalists', mostly out of envy, Carlton Alexander stood up and said enough was enough. The PSOJ was born then.
I am not here making out a case for the wholesale endorsing of every businessman in Jamaica. Too many at the time were sole 'commission agents' making guaranteed profits while being extremely inefficient. Others were socially aloof and engaged in corrupt business practices, had 'green cards' and were living here with one foot stretching across the South Atlantic and planted in Florida. They had no real loyalties to Jamaica. The majority were, however, men and women who had the country's interests at heart.
To the PNP of the 1970s, they did not matter. That Michael Manley could have burst upon the scene in 1972 with so much goodwill stored up for him, then squander it all with his poorly managed socio-political experimentation, told me that politicians are their own worst enemies.
When Manley marched on The Gleaner in the late 1970s, The Gleaner was seen as one of the most powerful representatives of the business class. When Manley threatened in earshot of all, "Next time, next time", many took that to mean that he, Michael Manley, wanted to secure a genuine mandate on a fully blown socialist ticket and at that 'next time' The Gleaner and big business would quake and be no more.
It was into that troubling socio-political melee that Carlton Alexander waded. While his style of dealing with politicians gone drunk on power was different from the approach of 'Priest', it was still effective. Where 'Priest' in the 1950s and 1960s was the moral voice of the nation thundering from his diminutive frame, Carlton Alexander was the strategist, recognising the dangers of political power gone wild. He entered the maze, completed the circuit and assisted in neutering the power of the PNP in 1980.
Enter the Dragon in 1989
As I have said before, even if the complement of those who formed the PNP administration in 1989 were not all the same as in the 1970s, the political outlook was similar to the 1970s. We had seen Manley as the man who had mucked up between 1974 and 1980, and though we still loved him, by the end of the decade he was a liability to the nation.
The Seaga administration of 1980 to 1989 had begun to register five per cent annual growth in its last five years. Unknown to Seaga, a workaholic and a cold man to all but his inner circle of friends and with an imperious approach to leadership when he was voted out in 1989, it was simply because he was not liked by the people. It was easy, therefore, to view him as the 'fixer'.
Once the 'fixer' had got it right, it was easy to recall the 'lover'. In re-electing Michael Manley, this nation proved that it was not ready for real government. First, the memories of the turbulent 1970s were still fresh in the minds of the people, yet they elected Manley. Is it that the people were mad or stupid or both?
The fact is, even though in the 1970s we were able to say that it was 'Manley's fault', by the time the end of the decade of the 1980s rolled around we were able to admit, somewhat confusingly that it wasn't really Manley's fault, it was those in the lunatic left of the PNP and the WPJ.
We recall that immediately on taking office, the PNP engaged us in its first of many scandals, the 'Furniture Scandal' where newly made ministers decided to stock up on new, extremely expensive furniture for their government-sponsored houses. Were we smart people, we would have recognised that that is the true measure of pseudo-socialists, feathering their own nests, or at least making them comfortable.
The biggest consideration at that time was the perceived change in the interface between business and the new, 'reformed' PNP administration. The demise of Century National Bank (CNB), the experience of the Paul Chen-Young entity, the Eagle Merchant Bank, and the meltdown of the financial sector were all proof that the PNP had merely changed its outer garments.
Hugh Small would have made a
better finance minister
Much of the meltdown which occurred in the mid-1990s was due to two factors. While Hugh Small was finance minister, there was some indication that good sense would prevail. Consequent on Michael Manley stepping down due to ill health, a vacancy arose. In the PNP presidency race of 1992, DK Duncan and Hugh Small were the team leaders backing Portia Simpson against PJ Patterson.
Just before that contest, the PNP was into scandal number three (the first two were the Furniture and Zinc scandals) which became known as the Shell Waiver Scandal. A man named Howard Hamilton was the general manager of Shell in Jamaica. Like all the oil companies operating here, Shell imported its fuel and it so happened that it sought a governmental waiver on duties that it was mandated to pay on the import.
Shell requested the waiver and got it from the respective minister, PJ Patterson. It would have been all well and we could have claimed that it was the privilege of PJ Patterson to grant the waiver based on his own best considerations on behalf of the country. Whatever his decision was based on, it turned out that Howard Hamilton, general manager of Shell in Jamaica, was a member of the PNP's National Executive Council (NEC).
At that time, Manley was livid. PJ Patterson resigned, but he fired back, "I shall return", and return he did. Prior to the contest, Hugh Small, not a man to mince words, told a JBC-TV reporter (either Cliff Hughes or the late Hugh Crosskill) that "Mr Patterson still has unanswered questions on the Shell Waiver matter," or words which meant the same.
When Mr Patterson secured his own mandate in March 1993, Hugh Small was out and the nation was introduced to a man who would epitomise the PNP's failure in its approach to business, Dr Omar Davies.
Little did we know that when Michael Manley spoke about controlling 'the commanding heights of the economy' his followers would identify his instructions for a later time. All we have to do to enumerate this is to take a good look at the mid-level entrepreneurial class which began its push in the 1980s and was almost totally wiped out under the watch of Omar Davies in the late 1990s.
Enter 'restructuring' and beyond
That Finance Minister Omar Davies still has the temerity to make public comment on the financial sector is a shocker to me. Remember now, he was the same minister who told his followers in early 2003 that there was no way in which the PNP Government would lessen its spending in an election year.
The PNP chose instead to 'run with it', and further impoverish the nation just so that it could win an election. It was corrupt because it happened, and doubly corrupt that he admitted it and was rewarded. His reward was in getting to keep his job.
In any other self-respecting country he would have been fired or, if he was sufficiently moved to admit something decent inside of him, he would have resigned.
This, of course, is Jamaica where our people conveniently fall asleep where governmental corruption rears its ugly head. Omar Davies knows this, and his prime minister at the time, the laid-back and oftentimes innocuous PJ Patterson, is very well aware of this.
In the aftermath of Finsac, almost the entire mid-level entrepreneurial class has been neutered or wiped out by the monetary policies of the PNP. One businessman I know told me he borrowed $5 million, paid back $15 million and still owed $55 million.
Mr Godfrey Dyer told a gathering recently that from a loan amount of $15 million in 1992, when he eventually repaid it, the total paid was $157 million!
Another businessman I know, a professional in construction, after wending his way though the dangerous financial maze of the 1990s, secured a loan for $5 million in 1993, paid back $62 million and still owed $28 million.
In 1997 when FINSAC was brought about, it was showing his loan balance at $46 million. In April of 2007, the Jamaica Redevelopment Foundation Inc (JRF), that foreign company that had purchased the Finsac portfolio for 20 cents on the dollar, sent him a bill for outstanding loan amount. The figure, $398 million.
Another man who is a professional in his field purchased a house in the 1980s for $60,000. After sleepless nights trying to solve his outstanding loans with JRF he received a call from a friend who told him that he had seen his house up for auction in the press. In a rush he headed to the auction.
"I am certain that the sale would have settled out at about $30 million. Then the auctioneer deliberately paused the proceedings after which another bidder entered. The bid was restarted and the newcomer drove up the price to $45 million. Mr. Wignall, I was forced to buy back my house for $45 million! All of my relatives and some friends chipped in. I have set off some of my unfinished housing units against the money they provided me. Not only that, but in the first few hours of the sale I had to find 25 per cent of the sale price," he said while close to tears.
Selling off Jamaica
In the aftermath of the PNP's sojourn in our life from 1989 to now, countries like Trinidad and Barbados have been the richer. We have sold our banks to Trinidad and Tobago and our life insurance companies to Barbados. For one payment these countries snatched up important pieces of our economic patrimony while each quarter they take money out of Jamaica to enrich their own people.
And while we do this, behind the scenes, thousands of our home-grown nationals are being bled to death by companies like JRF. Now JRF is in business like every other entity, but even it must admit that a sweeter deal has never been had. As JRF sells off the assets like that businessman's house for $45 million, the Government gets a small cut and the vast majority is repatriated to the good ol' United States.
We sold the Cement Company to the Trinidadians because we say the company was in trouble and needed funds for expansion. Well, the Cement Company produced rotten cement last year and even said it wanted an increase. Anyone who operates that company would have to be a fool to lose money. The raw material is right there on top of the company, it has a captive market, it is close to the docks and customers are always lining up outside with managers' cheques to purchase the material. But, we sold that off.
It took Mutual Life 160 years to arrive at where it was in the 1990s. Not to worry, though. In a matter of a song and a whistle, it was sold off to foreigners.
When the history of the era of the 1990s is finally written, the PNP Government and Omar Davies' tenure will be lambasted for their recklessness and what appears to be their hostility to business.
My own view is that they have shown this hostility simply because there are few people in the PNP Cabinet who do not have to meet a pay-bill at the end of the week or month. I also believe that a lot of it is just plain envy and is a throwback to the 1970s when they were preaching class warfare and hate. To me, the 1990s and beyond is their attempt to catch up on what was considered incomplete in the 1970s.
When a study is done of Finsac and its aftermath, only then will the people of this country be made aware of the thousands of hard-working Jamaicans who have been brought to their knees by the evil policies of this administration.
observemark@gmail.com
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