Jamaica must be commended for its efforts to combat the AIDS epidemic amidst the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic which underscore the country’s resilience and commitment to public health. Despite a 10 per cent contraction in real GDP, in...
There are few cock-ups in the management and administration of public policy in Jamaica in recent decades bigger than the taking of the island’s current census. In preparation long before then, the consensus has been going on for a year-and-a-...
Over the last 20 years, Jamaica has had a concerning trend of diminishing productivity. Declines in key productivity measures have positioned the nation at the bottom of Caribbean labour productivity rankings. Specifically, annual decreases of 0.6...
The headline of last Friday’s Gleaner editorial appears to be misleading: “DPP did nothing wrong.” Surprisingly, the editorial identified at least one instance in which the DPP did, in fact, do something wrong. On the controversial matter of the...
Politicians do politics; and everything that went on last week, between the government and Opposition parliamentarians, is sheer political one-upmanship. Caution to both. Just remember that 71 per cent of the electorate does not give a cough for...
First, I need to make a correction to my last article, ‘Politicians, listen to the deafening silence’. My year reference should have been to the general election of 2016, not 2011. Now to the matter at hand. I sat in the parking lot of the New...
The government’s decision to remove general consumption tax (GCT) on all raw foods, including imported vegetables, is being defended on the basis that Jamaica must become compliant or risk World Trade Organization (WTO) sanctions. As Opposition...
In the face of escalating global environmental challenges, water scarcity and water stress have emerged as critical issues that threaten the livelihoods and well-being of millions of people. Nowhere are these challenges more acute than in the...
Dedicated to all medical doctors in the Caribbean Four surgeons sat around discussing their favourite patients. The first surgeon said, “I like operating on librarians. When you open them up, everything is in alphabetical order”. The second...
As I pointed out some weeks ago, campaigning is well under way for the next general election due by 2025. The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) have been badly shaken and disoriented by the extent of the swing towards the People’s National Party (PNP)....
“When the former Speaker was forced to resign as a result of an Integrity Commission investigation, the move to replace her with the wife of the prime minister so that the head of Parliament is now the spouse of the head of Government really does...
Jamaica’s justice system, and the administration thereof, are not so delicate that they cannot tolerate robust but respectful scrutiny from the people they are supposed to serve. That is why this newspaper is surprised by the seemingly abrupt turn...
Hopefully, there will be a mature sitting of Parliament today, without Tuesday’s contrived outrage and childish petulance by Prime Minister Andrew Holness and his Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) colleagues. In other words, Opposition Leader Mark Golding...
TRAVELLING THROUGH the Jamaican countryside has always been a very satisfying experience. Whether for work or recreation, I have deliberately ensured that there was a stop or two at some of our ‘cultural food locations’ which I have always had...
I WON’T be at Champs this year. And no, it’s not just because I can’t get one of those coveted tickets. Neither is it because I’m no longer a fan of track and field, nor because I’m still mourning Usain Bolt’s retirement. Although, if he’s reading...
This newspaper welcomes Desmond McKenzie’s promise to instruct local government councillors on their obligations to their constituents and to inform citizens of the services that are the responsibility of municipal corporations. But while we...
In my article last week, I dealt with the outcome of the 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) of the World Trade Organization (WTO). In that article, I mentioned that agriculture was one of the items of interest to Jamaica and other CARICOM members....
“There will be no more exporting of gold to foreign countries,” Burkina Faso President, Captain Ibrahim Traore, told a shocked world in November 2023. “The gold will be sold as finished product, and some of the gold will be used to back up Burkina...
As Jamaican Dancehall fraternity/sorority celebrated the Lizard Williams murder convictions’ quashing, shouts of “Free World Boss” reverberated from Gaza to Tower Street. Legal defence teams did “victory” laps before nearby cameras. Eminent King’s...
Recently, a friend sent me a video she thought would interest me. In the clip, a young woman with a European accent is seen giving what appears to be a TED Talk to a live audience. During her monologue, she said, “It is our responsibility to...
Don Robotham, the anthropologist and public intellectual who comments frequently on Jamaica’s political economy, delivered what ought not to have been a surprising, yet still deeply disturbing, anecdote in a column in this newspaper on Sunday. An...
One of my objectives when serving in the Ministry of Education was to extend and transform the school feeding programme. There would be several advantages. Foremost would be to improve the attendance, behaviour and performance of the 200,000...
Every two years, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) holds its Regional Ministerial Conference in Latin America and the Caribbean, bringing together its 33 members in the region to monitor progress and address the...
Even as it examines the future of jury trials in Jamaica, the Holness administration must urgently bring to Parliament legislation to close a loophole for the cynical contamination of juries, deliberately aimed and the undermining of cases – the...
Recently, announcing plans for municipal elections, Prime Minister Andrew Holness, not for the first time, stridently declared: “When I say that I love the poor but I hate poverty, you know what I mean”. Who am I to doubt him? I can claim no...
