As former president of the Small Business Association of Jamaica and an international business consultant, I have had the privilege of working closely with the SME industry for the past 25 years. I wish to share my perspective and experience to...
The empirical evidence on the relationship between an educated workforce and economic growth is conclusive. While the magnitude of the impact of an educated workforce on the level of growth in an economy is not always certain, what is clear is that...
The glaring failure of Jamaica’s planning regulators to embrace their responsibilities to communities makes it important that Pearnel Charles Jr, the new minister for housing and urban renewal, remind them to whom they owe their primary obligation...
Last month, the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) released the 2020 Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) and Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) results. Of note, two Information Technology (IT) CAPE grades were...
UNWTO: With COVID-19, global tourism is the worst affected of all major sectors – an emergency for developing countries and small island developing states (SIDS) Last Saturday, a relative in the USA told me that with a very heavy heart, she...
COVID-19 pandemic is spreading like wildfire all over the world, disrupting human lives in unprecedented ways, causing pain and heartache with the loss of life, debilitating illness, loss of livelihood, and restrictions on doing the things we love...
During this time of heightened stress and anxiety, stay-at-home orders, social distancing, and the mandatory wearing of masks once you venture outside, have changed the way we live and do business. Simple things like a walk or run in the park have...
Perhaps the most welcoming aspect of Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ behaviour after his party’s lopsided win in last month’s election was the lack of triumphalism in his victory speeches and his admonition to his side that theirs was a mandate for...
“Don’t wanna be an American idiot Don’t want a nation under the new media Hey can you hear the sound of hysteria? The subliminal mind-f*** America.” The year is 2004. I sing along as I listen to the song American Idiot, from the Grammy-...
The term ‘20-20 vision’ has become a double entendre. It speaks to witnessing this nightmarish plague at first-hand. It also means that future generations will look back at the year 2020 with the clarity of hindsight. We will be harshly criticised...
By tomorrow’s sitting of Parliament, Minister Clarke and the other front-line ministers of agriculture, manufacturing, mining and education must be expected to present plans for the reset of the economy. In fact, the whole Budget needs a reset. No...
Pearnel Charles Jr may say it is early days yet. He will nonetheless find that there is no time for delay in establishing priorities for his super ministry, some of whose missions, unless he is clear about the tasks, are likely to fall in conflict...
We are currently in a period of democratic crisis. It does not take the form of violent elections and overvoting as occurred in the past, but of popular apathy and attendant low levels of participation. At the 2020 Bocas Literary Festival panel...
Devmarie Blake-Brown, the outstanding teacher whose 12-year-old students recently passed the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) English examination, has certainly made history. The achievement of Khyreice Gordon and Andrene Morgan is...
A country’s tax records fossilise its economic history. The chronic economic instability and turmoil that Jamaica experienced over much of the past three decades, that affected public and private sectors, and the struggles of under-resourced tax...
My prayers are with the Trump family after President of the United States Donald Trump and his spouse Melania tested positive for the COVID-19 and are on watch for symptoms. It is not known if there are any adverse signs but we certainly do not...
Officially, the US state of California didn’t have slavery. When it entered the Union in 1850, eleven years before the America’s civil war, it did so as a ‘free state’, with a constitution forbidding slavery. “... Neither Slavery nor involuntary...
COVID-19 has struck one of the most prominent patients of all. United States (US)President Donald Trump, 74, tweeted just before 1 a.m. Friday that he and the First Lady had tested positive for coronavirus. Mere hours before this turn of events, he...
The COVID-19 pandemic has created the largest disruption of the education system in history, affecting nearly 1.6 billion students in over 190 countries, including Jamaica, where approximately 31,656 teachers and 627,000 students are affected,...
“ Lying, cheating, barking, bullying” was Huffington Post’s description of Donald Trump’s behaviour in the first Presidential Debate on Tuesday night, and it forced an unusual and uncharacteristic response from his normally calm opponent, Joe Biden...
Except for the Government’s most earnest and uncritical supporters, Prime Minister Andrew Holness will be hard-pressed to convince Jamaicans that what he realised this week in scrapping the Opposition from the leadership of some key parliamentary...
It took 191 days for Jamaica to have 50 deaths related to COVID-19 (on September 16). It took only 12 more days (September 28) to have the second 50 deaths. This is not a conspiracy theory, Minister Tufton – this is a fact! The Government’s theory...
Latin America and the Caribbean region are one of the most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic in the world, with a health impact as strong as that of advanced countries, but without comparable means to mitigate the effect on economic activity and...
Understanding how the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) gets into our bodies is vital if we are to succeed in preventing this virus from continuing to spread and giving so many of us coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-...
As we celebrate the 71st anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China today, I would like to commend the Jamaican Government and people for their timely and effective response to the COVID-19 pandemic. I salute those heroes working...
