EDITORIAL - Can the JEEP cross it?

WE CAN assure Mrs Portia Simpson Miller that no one is, at this point, laughing at the jobs-creation initiatives she unveiled at the People's National Party's (PNP) annual conference on Sunday. What Jamaicans will want to be assured of, however, is that her JEEP is capable of manoeuvring the country's treacherous economic terrain, and that Mrs Simpson Miller can drive with greater CARE than those who now have the wheel.

Of course, Mrs Simpson Miller's concerns about likely snickering is understandable. She has the evidence of what the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has endured since the heady days of promising to reward an election victory with "jobs, jobs, jobs".

Indeed, Mrs Simpson Miller, in Sunday's speech, ridiculed the Golding administration for the fact that during its four years in office, the economy shed around 100,000 jobs, that unemployment has jumped from nine to over 12 per cent, and that the rate of poverty has tripled to 20 per cent.

What the opposition leader did not dwell on is that these adverse ratios were in the context of the global recession and a bumpy and faltering recovery, as well as Jamaica's big debt overhang that preceded the current administration.

The foregoing, however, does not undermine her marking of Jamaica's crisis of jobs, especially among the youth, and the absolute imperative of economic growth.

The validity of this concentration is highlighted in the data showing that around 400,000 Jamaicans in the 15-29 age group were two years ago either unemployed or had opted out of the workforce altogether. Of this number, approximately 80 per cent, or around 320,000, were in the category which no longer saw any sense, for whatever reason, in seeking jobs.

We can add to these depressing statistics the many people in marginal jobs and the others who lost their employment in the recession. In that context, Mrs Simpson Miller proposed a national intervention programme (NIP) - of which JEEP (Jamaica Emergency Employment Programme) is the centrepiece - which is worthy of serious discussion. That is why it is important that the PNP, as a matter of urgency, provide the public with better and further particulars.

Among the promises of JEEP, for example, are tax incentives to existing businesses for investments that create jobs, start-ups, and to financial institutions that provide stimulus-type loans.

Stressed national budget

It appears, too, that a PNP government is willing to put money into programmes that promote exports, although how this is to be done remains hazy. This, plus its culture, arts, recreation and education (CARE) programme, which has more than a whiff of the inner-city resuscitation scheme now on the agenda, also suggests a demand on the already stressed national budget. Mrs Miller, however, did make the point that financing will largely be a matter of establishing priorities and renegotiating the parameters of Jamaica's existing, but uncertain, standby arrangement with the International Monetary Fund.

Such promises, however, are easily made, but harder to implement, which is why the initiatives have now to be built out with specifics, including costs.

There are two other things implied, but not stated in Mrs Simpson Miller's address: the PNP feels compelled, ahead of its own timetable, to move its Progressive Agenda from abstractions to practical policies; and it perceives an activist state, if not overly interventionist state.