Editorial | Keith Duncan’s challenge

Keith Duncan, recently re-elected as president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), says that he is looking to build on the gains of his first year, with the focus being on helping to chart a recovery of an inclusive economy that raises the quality of life of all Jamaicans.

First, Mr Duncan deserves congratulations that the members of the PSOJ retained confidence in his leadership. But more important, his goal is worthy of success. We wish him good luck. But as Mr Duncan well knows, luck, while it is to be accepted if it presents itself, is not likely to be the assured route to his ends. That will require much thoughtful effort, hard work and broad national cooperation. Or, as Mr Duncan framed the issue in a post-election interview, “it will take all hands on deck to develop an inclusive Jamaica”.

Indeed, Jamaica is in very, very difficult circumstances. After eight years of hard slog to achieve macroeconomic stability, the island’s economy was thrown into a tailspin by the coronavirus pandemic. More than 100,000 jobs have been lost and gross domestic product (GDP) will, in real terms, decline by between 10 per cent and 12 per cent this year. The need for additional government spending to cushion this fallout, and a lower inflow of taxes, means that the national debt, which before the pandemic had been lowered by nearly 50 percentage points, to 94 per cent of GDP, is on an uptick.

Against this backdrop, the PSOJ has three primary tasks if they are serious about helping to engineer an economy that delivers Mr Duncan’s goal of raising “the quality of life” for all Jamaicans, “particularly those who are most vulnerable”.

The first is the raison d’être of the PSOJ – pursuing the interest of its members to ensure an environment, economic and political, in which entrepreneurs can take risks, without wild and arbitrary changes of the rules under which they committed their capital. In other words, there has to be relative policy certainty, which has been largely the case in Jamaica in recent years.

In this respect, the PSOJ’s policy advocacy cannot merely be urgings from the hallowed sidelines. It has to be an engagement of stakeholders – including the Government and other civil society groups – in partnership, while being sensitive to each side’s peculiar interests. This, as Mr Duncan pointed out, is already a hallmark of his organisation. Its participation, for instance, in the Government’s COVID-19 Economic Recovery Task Force is a case point.

BALANCED IN POLICY

Further, if the PSOJ is to deepen the public’s trust of the institution, it has to be balanced in its policy prescriptions. They have to be fashioned so as to genuinely deliver the improved quality of life of all Jamaicans, beyond the provision of social welfare support, which Mr Duncan has talked about. In other words, the PSOJ has an interest in equitable growth. Social stability is good for business and an enduring private sector.

Proceeding on these paths, and making itself an enabler of economic growth, will require something else of the PSOJ. Its policies have to be based on empirical data, rather than anecdotal information. Which brings us back to our observation at the start of Mr Duncan’s presidency more than a year ago. It was our sense then that for all the good work it did, and continues to do, the PSOJ had slipped in the research and data-analytical side of its work.

Perchance we are right, it is a matter Mr Duncan might place on his agenda for rectifying during his new term. In an environment where such information is often limited, it would be useful if the PSOJ’s proposals and policy ideas were underpinned by research data and analysis, to which the public has access via periodic publications or on the organisation’s website. It certainly would enhance policy debates about the private sector’s role in the economy, and in keeping with the best practices of similar institutions globally.