JEEP = CRASH PROGRAMME:

Jamaica’s new­ly elect­ed Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller told that coun­try she is ready to launch cer­tain aspects of the Jamaica Emergency employ­ment Programme (JEEP) .Miller rode to vic­to­ry on the promise she would be using this pro­gramme much vaunt­ed by her par­ty, to pro­duce jobs for unem­ployed peo­ple in the coun­try. Simpson Miller address­ing mem­bers of the exec­u­tive coun­cil of her par­ty told them that she would like­ly launch cer­tain aspects of the pro­gramme on Wednesday of this week.

Simpson Miller Azan: MP’s to select JEEP employ­ees. Jamaicagleaner​.com

Miller went on to say that the roll out would like­ly see 700 hun­dred jobs cre­at­ed over sev­en parish­es that’s 100 jobs per parish.

What is the cri­te­ria that will be the qual­i­fi­er for secur­ing those jobs?

What kinds of jobs will they be?

Will the jobs, irre­spec­tive of kind or qual­i­ty, be doled out to par­ty hacks?

One hun­dred jobs per parish will not ease the chron­ic unem­ploy­ment in the coun­try, it is how­ev­er a step in the right direc­tion. The source of my wor­ries is not with how many jobs will be cre­at­ed, or who will get those jobs, impor­tant though those two con­sid­er­a­tions are.

HERE’S THE PROBLEM:

In January, the Government held talks with China regard­ing re-direct­ing mon­ey from funds loaned for the Jamaica Development Infrastructure Programme towards JEEP .

This is astound­ing in my esti­ma­tion, it is arguable a bad pol­i­cy that Jamaica have been pur­su­ing when it decid­ed to bor­row mon­ey from China as part of its devel­ope­ment goals, the fact is China is awash with cash and as part of any loan guar­an­tee demands that coun­tries bor­row­ing its mon­ey actu­al­ly use some chi­nese work­ers on projects in order to put Chinese work­ers to work. This is sound pol­i­cy for China , it lends mon­ey, col­lects inter­est on its mon­ey, and puts its work­ers to work, it is a win , win for China. There is real­ly not a lot of choice in this regard as unpalat­able as it is for Jamaica as it is for oth­er coun­tries like the United States. The Chinese have the cash and we need money.

AS BAD AS IT IS THOUGH

: As bad as bor­row­ing mon­ey from the Chinese and employ­ing their nation­als is, it is par­tic­u­lar­ly alarm­ing to me that now these funds will be mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ed from doing tan­gi­ble infra­struc­tur­al work that will be part of the cat­a­lyst that must pro­pel Jamaica into the first world. Let me say this, this is clear and unequiv­o­cal crash pro­gramme dis­guised as some­thing else, it will be dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly giv­en to PNP sup­port­ers as pay­ment for their vote, and to buy vote for future elec­tions, this is vin­tage PNP strat­e­gy, this JEEP pro­gramme is dif­fer­ent in that we will have used the Chinese’ mon­ey we will have noth­ing to show for it , no roads no bridges, and we will be slaves to them for this money.

The coun­try’s Transport and works Minister Richard Azan revealed that Members of Parliament will play what he called an inte­gral part in select­ing employ­ees of (JEEP). Are you kid­ding me? I have been warn­ing long before the elec­tions of 2011 that Miller has no under­stand­ing of how a mar­ket econ­o­my works , she under­stands very lit­tle about what is required to pre­pare the coun­try for the 21^st cen­tu­ry , as such it would be impos­si­ble for her to come up with ideas or strate­gies which would pro­pel the coun­try into the 21^st cen­tu­ry. Miller under­stands the pol­i­tics of the 70’s, patron­age pol­i­tics, gar­ri­son pol­i­tics, nepo­tism, (her fam­i­ly mem­bers in her cab­i­net) she can­not help her­self that is who she is, the only prob­lem is that her time has come and gone. I stat­ed in no uncer­tain terms that this much hyped JEEP would be noth­ing more than a return of crash pro­gramme, as an Elementary school stu­dent in the 70’s, I was a wit­ness to his­to­ry, I saw the Armies of PNP sup­port­ers sit­ting on walls, rid­ing around on motor­cy­cles, and lean­ing on brooms, wait­ing for their cheques for doing noth­ing . Manley bank­rupt­ed the coun­try with this mon­ey give-away to PNP sup­port­ers .Miller is here to fin­ish the destruction.

CRASH PROGRAMME WORK CAN NEVER BE THE SOLUTION TO OUR COUNTRY’S DILEMA, IT IS PAYMENT FOR VOTES PLAIN AND SIMPLE.

As I point­ed out on many occa­sions in these blogs this is what Portia Simpson Miller was up to, it was what she cam­paigned on , it is pol­i­tics at its most base, most crass and most parochial. It wa designed to pay for votes, it is not a seri­ous attempt at job cre­ation, it is a bud­get bust­ing give-away. Money in JDIP will even­tu­al­ly run out, after all it is not an infi­nite source, bor­row­ing to build and repair infra­struc­ture is some­thing we can live with. Infrastructure built and main­tained is an asset, Politicians dol­ing out bor­rowed mon­ey to par­ty hacks as pay­ment for vot­ing for them is the most despi­ca­ble act the Miller Government could vis­it on the Jamaican peo­ple. Those who vot­ed for this gov­ern­ment are not fools, many peo­ple are hun­gry or with­out jobs. To some­one with­out a job or food on the tables it is rather appeal­ing when some­one promis­es the prospect of a job. This approach how­ev­er is an affront and a slap in the face of Jamaicans. On the face of it there seem to be legit­i­ma­cy how­ev­er when looked at in a his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tive there is a les­son all of us must have learned from the mis­takes of the past . Those who for­get the mis­takes they made are bound to repeat them.

Portia Simpson Miller have had 4 years after her par­ty lost to the labor par­ty to avail her­self to the real­i­ties of the 21^st cen­tu­ry, crash pro­gramme hand­outs and “shar­ing man­goes with the rest of the world” can­not be the path for­ward for Jamaica. We live in the age of infor­ma­tion tech­nolo­gies , math and sci­ence must be in the fore­front of what we teach in our schools and uni­ver­si­ties. If our young peo­ple are going to com­pete in the world polit­i­cal lead­ers must under­stand that our peo­ple must be edu­cat­ed and pre­pared for the jobs in com­put­er engi­neer­ing, research,and writ­ing soft­ware programmes.

If the monies to be used for JEEP was not bor­rowed mon­ey I would still have prob­lem with the return of this pro­gramme to Jamaica . It is an affront and an insult to the intel­li­gence of all Jamaicans, and is noth­ing more than a cheap insult­ing abuse of the Jamaican peo­ple by cor­rupt manip­u­la­tive politi­cians who take the Jamaican peo­ple for absolute fools.