Garth Rattray | Am I expecting too much from our leaders?

Despite the long-term and continuous deluge of desperate complaints from our road users, our horrendously potholed roads achieved unprecedented levels of vehicular damage, danger and ubiquity. In response, we were told that the fault lies with previous administrations along with their procurement procedures.

But the current administration was the previous administration at the helm from 2007 to 2011 and has held the reins of power and control from 2016 to the present. Additionally, this administration was the previous administration in 2009 that introduced a Special Consumption Tax on fuel to help repair our roads. That kind of narrative bothers me deeply. So maybe I am expecting too much from our leaders.

At my stage in life, although I do not have cataracts, I am having a very difficult time driving at nights. We are an ageing population, and I have discovered that I am far from alone with this problem. Between the poorly lit roads, the blinding lights from approaching vehicles, and the faint or absent lines in the roads to guide us, many Jamaican drivers are in serious trouble if darkness catches them on the roads.

In February of 2022, I penned a piece, “Please fix road surface markings”, highlighting the danger of our paucity of road markings and the faded remnants of them in many places. I even referred to a fatal crash on the North Coast Highway and that a senior policeman “took the time to plead for the authorities to brighten (redo) the road surface markings. They, he said, were so pale that they were of little or no use to drivers. He intimated that many lives could be saved if the road surface markings were redone”. Suffice it to say that very little has been done and, since then, many more roads are in need of proper road markings to help save lives. But then, maybe I am expecting too much from our leaders.

CRIME STATISTICS IMPROVING

Thanks to the hard work of all the players in the Ministry of National Security, and to the good citizens who cooperate with the constabulary, our crime statistics are improving. Although things are going in the right direction, I worry that this decline in crime will not be sustained. We need impactful social intervention if we are to enjoy a safe society for everyone. Too many communities are disenfranchised and underserved by the agencies designed to improve their lot in life. People are left to fend for themselves and therefore create alternate social mores that enhance their chances of survival within a society that they see as alien and even hostile towards them.

This results in a culture of aggression, civil disobedience, fiery tempers, and lawlessness that slowly leach out throughout our society. When local dons wield far more power and influence than the member of parliament and the police, something is seriously wrong. When scammers are looked up to, admired and emulated as role models for the young and impressionable, something is amiss. The government needs to insert itself into the lives of every citizen by seeking to uplift them, and not ignore them or only interact with them when enforcing the law. We need to increase our efforts at seeing to the proper care and upbringing of each and every child; that way, we will raise much better citizens and create a lot less monsters. But perhaps I am expecting too much from our leaders.

We are a consumerist society. On the surface of it, there is nothing wrong with that. However, our importations have gone wild, and our production and exports are flailing. There are several large merchant entities that access incredible sums of foreign exchange (FE) in order to supply their customers. Perhaps the government could consider basing the granting of import licenses to high-level merchants on their willingness to invest in some sort of production for export or become directly involved in production to earn some or all of the FE that they require to run their businesses.

GONE CRAZY

The fact is that we are consumerism gone crazy and production/exports relatively limping along. Our leaders need to find novel ways of production for export. We need ways to offset the wide gap between import and export. For example, we import humongous amounts of medications, but we produce only a very few. Why can’t the drug companies concerned be encouraged / facilitated to produce some of those medications right here in Jamaica? Those factories could be used as a base to supply other Caribbean, Central, and South American countries. I am not hearing new and innovative thinking in that direction. It very well could be that I am expecting too much from our leaders.

Several hallmarks of serious social degradation are evident throughout our society today. There is endemic corruption and incompetence. People are allowed to construct permanent structures and operate businesses on sidewalks, to ignore building permits, ignore covenants, ignore the approved plans, ignore the approved use of properties, operate commercial hubs within residential communities, ignore the Noise Abatement Act (day and/or night), to sell food and meals without the requisite licence or permits, and pretty much do whatever they please once they have ‘connections’.

For Jamaica to progress, it will take a strong administration that is unafraid of cleaning up the mess, of making unpopular decisions, and of the possible negative political consequences. Am I expecting too much from our leaders?

Garth Rattray is a medical doctor with a family practice, and author of ‘The Long and Short of Thick and Thin’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and garthrattray@gmail.com