I am wondering because the only time we seem to hear anything from our elected ” leader” is when she “defends” her many trips.
The PM provides zero guidance, you may hear a word when she wants to beg for support so she and her crew can remain in office for longer to take more from whatever little remains in the kitty. In these tough times the PNP is allowing its people to take $50,000 per mth in call credits or $60,000 per year, while at the same time asking us to hold strain.
This Prime Minister is anything but a leader and I am amazed at how many Jamaicans still believe she has what it takes to move this country forward.
If this is what passes for leadership, it explains why Jamaica has done such a terrible job in managing the economy, crime and education, when compared to other countries in the region.
I weep for Jamaica, when Jamaicans ever learn !
Filed under: Politics |
Warren's Blog 
Jamaicans are gullible and it doesn’t take much to fool them, for example the PM has said nothing on the EWI issue and the state of agencies like HAJ and TPDCO is disgraceful, the former has an operating deficit of over 300 million and the latter received a budget of over 600 million and only 15 million was used for development projects. Portia is only interested in popularity, she will never be a leader and when she demits politics it wil be better for us.
One day you will realize that a leader at the highest level is not an operational role. Leaders speak at a high level and delegate the operational tasks to the portfolio ministers. The leader acts when they are not doing their jobs.
Don’t you see that we have passed all the IMF tests so far. That is a major achievement.
The country is on a growth trajectory. Slow, but still positive
The passing of the IMF Test is good but not a major achievement, getting the economy to grow, job creation and stamping out security are major achievements. This situation we are in was created by the PNP, so in effect they are trying to clean up their own mess.
Its like me spilling the milk, then cleaning it up then pat myself on the back saying wow did I not do a super job in cleaning that up.
What did all this just cost me.
The Prime Minister is NOT in leadership at the highest level, never has been never will be. I don’t expect her to be at an operational level at all times, but right now she offers virtually no leadership at all.
Security in the country is …… me can’t even write that, what is being done and what actions can we expect ????
Too much focus on IMF test while the country is falling off a cliff
Delegation is a feature of leadership, but this policy only works when competent ministers exist, Portia is giving the impression that she is an effective leader because she allows her ministers to perform without interfering, but is this a good policy or maybe the prime minister is afraid to fire ineffective ministers? In St.Kitts and Grenada cabinet members demitted office, when it became apparent that their respective leaders weren’t performing, that’s an example of statesmanship, Margaret Thatcher herself was never afraid to fire an incompetent minister; but our leaders are only interested in self preservation not statesmanship. It was reported that the economy grew by over 1% during the december quarter, growth was attributed to the minimal recovery in agriculture and construction, now for nearly fifty years Jamaica’s average growth rate was 0.7%, we are so comfortable with mediocrity that growth below 2% impresses us, many persons fail to realize that that the IMF programme is about fiscal reform and not so much structural reform, some of the IMF related bills like Insolvency legislation will improve our competitiveness in the long term, but these bills are long overdue so we can only see them as stop-gap measures. No one is saying that passing the IMF test is not a good thing, although it is due to force, we are just suggesting that the IMF alone will not save us. For example, tax revenues are still outstanding and although the debt-to-gdp ratio has been reduced, the debt stock has grown this should not be a surprise to anyone, and it is expected that in a contractionary economy revenues will not be sufficient, after all the IMF will only create the framework for growth. However, excluding fiscal reforms very little attention is being paid to structural reform and we should not expect the IMF to make everything a structural benchmark, because it is a fiscal programme. A JLP Senator Kavan Gayle once foolishly criticised the IMF for not paying close attention to labour market reform and he suggested that employers must create on the job training in an attempt to improve the labour market, this solution was a bit obvious and lacklustre. Too many times we assume that sporadic programmes will make us competitive, its like we don’t realize how far behind Jamaica is, in Sweden some companies have created professional development centres for their employees without the assistance of government, not to mention Hong Kong where visionary entrepreneurs have built their economic institutes. Some companies may not have the capacity to be like their foreign counterparts, but I doubt that with the exception of few businesses like Grace Kennedy, such vision exists in the private sector. Solving internal inefficiencies in the private sector is a big part of labour market reform, so you see labour market reform is way more than a few training programmes. Furthermore, we must not applaud the HEART TRUST, because it has reneged on a number of its promise without providing reasons, for example the agency wanted to train 600,000 workers during 2004-2009, this did not happen, may be it was an overambition target or officials at the agency just wanted to brag about something, also training and certification are two different things not everyone who is trained is certified and training without certification doesn’t make much sense. It is also quite disturbing that Jamaica does not take benchmarking seriously, because if we compared HEART to similar agencies in countries like Australia we would see that the agency falls short and it is not an excuse to say that Australia is richer than Jamaica because Heart is one of the better managed and richer government agencies so the agency is just not being strategic enough. After so many years in existence, Jamaica professional development agency is still equipping its pupils with low skills and even worse investments are being made in remedial programmes in inner city communities, when a beneficiary of such a programme graduate from one of HEART’S training centres, he or she is not really ready for the global market place but the newly discovered skill in an area like carpentry or food and beverage management will become an avenue for generating income, but we need an adult education programme which is different from heart, and JAMAL. HEART is an offspring of Norman Manley’s social welfare programme which Seaga revamped, it was never expected to emerge into a professional development agency and unfortunately it has not to date. The TVET institutes and workforce colleges will not be different either. We are bragging about passing the tests of the IMF when we know that the loans of the IMF mean more debt and after the IMF what are we going to do if we don’t even undertand labour market. People really don’t understand the structural reforms that are needed beyond the IMF because if they did they wouldn’t be so happy about passing some tests. The fact that the PSOJ had to lobby the IMF to make improving the development approval process a structural benchmark should tell us what the programme is really about, and this process is still very bureaucratic, so you see passing the IMF Test is more about hype than actual development, many persons doubted the pnp, so their friends in the media want to prove a point and humiliate the jlp for derailing the programme, although the previous administration was still able to access funding from the multilaterals in 2011, nothwithstanding the relationship between Jamaica and the IMF, furthermore the major reason for the JLP’S inability to complete the programme was that the previous administration broke the wage freeze by paying sums which were owed to public sector workers by the previous pnp administration, public sector employees and the opposition were not willing to support the IMF programme and the JLP foolishly decided to honour the government’s obligation to the public sector at the expense of the IMF agreement and when the programme failed these people lambasted the previous administration and now the present administration is able to pass the tests because the public sector employees have supported the agreement and the present opposition is not encouraging tyranny. We are just playing politics. People voted for the pnp, and that’s good for them call me partisan if you wish but that doesn’t change the fact that Portia’s administration is a failure and if the pnp wins the next election I won’t be disappointed because I don’t pan to live here
Delegation is a feature of leadership, but this policy only works when competent ministers exist, Portia is giving the impression that she is an effective leader because she allows her ministers to perform without interfering, but is this a good policy or maybe the prime minister is afraid to fire ineffective ministers? In St.Kitts and Grenada cabinet members demitted office, when it became apparent that their respective leaders weren’t performing, that’s an example of statesmanship, Margaret Thatcher herself was never afraid to fire an incompetent minister; but our leaders are only interested in self preservation not statesmanship. It was reported that the economy grew by over 1% during the december quarter, growth was attributed to the minimal recovery in agriculture and construction, now for nearly fifty years Jamaica’s average growth rate was 0.7%, we are so comfortable with mediocrity that growth below 2% impresses us, many persons fail to realize that that the IMF programme is about fiscal reform and not so much structural reform, some of the IMF related bills like Insolvency legislation will improve our competitiveness in the long term, but these bills are long overdue so we can only see them as stop-gap measures. No one is saying that passing the IMF test is not a good thing, although it is due to force, we are just suggesting that the IMF alone will not save us. For example, tax revenues are still outstanding and although the debt-to-gdp ratio has been reduced, the debt stock has grown this should not be a surprise to anyone, and it is expected that in a contractionary economy revenues will not be sufficient, after all the IMF will only create the framework for growth. However, excluding fiscal reforms very little attention is being paid to structural reform and we should not expect the IMF to make everything a structural benchmark, because it is a fiscal programme. A JLP Senator Kavan Gayle once foolishly criticised the IMF for not paying close attention to labour market reform and he suggested that employers must create on the job training in an attempt to improve the labour market, this solution was a bit obvious and lacklustre. Too many times we assume that sporadic programmes will make us competitive, its like we don’t realize how far behind Jamaica is, in Sweden some companies have created professional development centres for their employees without the assistance of government, not to mention Hong Kong where visionary entrepreneurs have built their economic institutes. Some companies may not have the capacity to be like their foreign counterparts, but I doubt that with the exception of few businesses like Grace Kennedy, such vision exists in the private sector. Solving internal inefficiencies in the private sector is a big part of labour market reform, so you see labour market reform is way more than a few training programmes. Furthermore, we must not applaud the HEART TRUST, because it has reneged on a number of its promise without providing reasons, for example the agency wanted to train 600,000 workers during 2004-2009, this did not happen, may be it was an overambition target or officials at the agency just wanted to brag about something, also training and certification are two different things not everyone who is trained is certified and training without certification doesn’t make much sense. It is also quite disturbing that Jamaica does not take benchmarking seriously, because if we compared HEART to similar agencies in countries like Australia we would see that the agency falls short and it is not an excuse to say that Australia is richer than Jamaica because Heart is one of the better managed and richer government agencies so the agency is just not being strategic enough. After so many years in existence, Jamaica professional development agency is still equipping its pupils with low skills and even worse investments are being made in remedial programmes in inner city communities, when a beneficiary of such a programme graduate from one of HEART’S training centres, he or she is not really ready for the global market place but the newly discovered skill in an area like carpentry or food and beverage management will become an avenue for generating income, but we need an adult education programme which is different from heart, and JAMAL. HEART is an offspring of Norman Manley’s social welfare programme which Seaga revamped, it was never expected to emerge into a professional development agency and unfortunately it has not to date. The TVET institutes and workforce colleges will not be different either. We are bragging about passing the tests of the IMF when we know that the loans of the IMF mean more debt and after the IMF what are we going to do if we don’t even undertand labour market. People really don’t understand the structural reforms that are needed beyond the IMF because if they did they wouldn’t be so happy about passing some tests. The fact that the PSOJ had to lobby the IMF to make improving the development approval process a structural benchmark should tell us what the programme is really about, and this process is still very bureaucratic, so you see passing the IMF Test is more about hype than actual development, many persons doubted the pnp, so their friends in the media want to prove a point and humiliate the jlp for derailing the programme, although the previous administration was still able to access funding from the multilaterals in 2011, nothwithstanding the relationship between Jamaica and the IMF, furthermore the major reason for the JLP’S inability to complete the programme was that the previous administration broke the wage freeze by paying sums which were owed to public sector workers by the previous pnp administration, public sector employees and the opposition were not willing to support the IMF programme and the JLP foolishly decided to honour the government’s obligation to the public sector at the expense of the IMF agreement and when the programme failed these people lambasted the previous administration and now the present administration is able to pass the tests because the public sector employees have supported the agreement and the present opposition is not encouraging tyranny. We are just playing politics. People voted for the pnp, and that’s good for them call me partisan if you wish but that doesn’t change the fact that Portia’s administration is a failure and if the pnp wins the next election I won’t be disappointed because I don’t plan to live here
@Lipton, don’t let the door hit you on your way out. you don’t have to send a postcard. We who remain here will somehow survive without your presence in Jamaica
The JLP got four years and the people saw they were going nowhere fast. They made them into the first one term government in recent history.
It is beyond debate that the Jamaican people were tremendously disappointed with the JLP by giving the PNP an over mandate . The people gave Portia an overwhelming win. when will that register in your head.
She is the PM. you guys just sound like the fox who always crying over ‘sour’ grapes
The electorate kept the pnp in power for 18.5 years after the party’s numerous scandals, so I don’t think the Jamaica electorate is credible.
Well its a little concept called democracy. Something that you should respect.
You people claim that the jlp was going nowhere, this party is not better the only difference is that the pnp has more cheerleaders in the media, Jamaica is still declining on international indices, like the HDI and the pnp is continuing to politicise the public sector with its henchmen. Cullcull, I have no interest in either party because they are both statists and useless and unfortunately instead of articulating a policy for the country, members of the jlp are speaking about welfare. Jamaica will not go anywhere until we reduce corruption, promote order and get rid of statism.
OBSERVER
WE ARE THE ARCHITECTS OF OUR DEMISE
Politicians are often blamed for our present conundrum by persons who created a conduit for political failure due to their apathy. The issues of mismanagement and waste in the public sector are perplexing for many, but what have we done about them?
Criticise America all you want, but at least it has been fertile ground for politicial advocacy. Our civil society leaders are merely political henchmen who are able to echo public sentiment in a somewhat enlightened manner.
For example, most people can agree that corruption is a major problem, but none has been brave enough to monitor expenditure in the public sector. Some of us fear political victimisation and others would love to occupy government boards in the future. We must admit that it is difficult to change the populist culture of Jamaica, where it is a sacrosanct belief that Government must be the provider of all services. Therefore, a coalition for fiscal reform could infuse the political system with new ideals.
Jamaica needs pragmatic political leaders, not demagogues whose noble intentions will burden future generations with debt. When funds were diverted from the National Housing Trust to finance a politically expedient programme, JEEP, there was no voice to defend the rights of contributors. Our leaders seem to care more about intentions and not actual results, notwithstanding the track record of initiatives like JEEP.
According to American tax expert Chris Edwards: “Federal programmes for the unemployed and disadvantaged workers now cost $18 billion a year, yet the Government Accountability Office recently concluded that ‘little is known about the effectiveness of employment and training programmes we identified’. Indeed, many studies over the decades have found that these programmes — though well intentioned — don’t help the economy much, if at all.”
Even when the Government is being forced to reduce spending, they have the temerity to increase the budget of JEEP from $740 million to $1.04 billion. Programmes like JEEP are not economically sustainable, therefore this Government is not really serious about fiscal reform. The Government should divest idle state-owned buildings and spend less.
The sad reality is that Jamaican voters are hostile to free-market economics, and politicians who do not conform to these ideals will not win an election. So maybe we should stop complaining because we are the architects of our own demise, or better yet citizens who really care about the future could start their own lobby group “Coalition for Fiscal Reform”.
Lipton Matthews
lo_matthews@yahoo.com
@ Lipton , For someone with no interest in either party, you seem intent of having a change of government.
I want a change of government, this administration has handled the energy situation quite tardily, and it seems that Portia and her friends are not accountable to anyone and despite the pronouncements very little is being done to improve the development approval process. This administration is not impressive there is a lot of talk but very little work