Commentary

LET ME commend Minister Nigel Clarke on the stimulus package he presented during his 2020-21 Budget Debate, which, I hope, will bring some relief to many Jamaicans who have become vulnerable at this time. We do understand that aspects of this...

My heart bleeds. I know the three ladies as students in the Faculty of Social Sciences on my plantation. Tiana James, a current next-generation graduate student, died after giving birth, and her baby also passed two days later. Then, 2019 graduate...

Unless it is being done on the quiet, we expect the Financial Services Commission (FSC) to join the central bank in announcing a mutual understanding with the institutions it regulates to suspend the declaration and distribution of dividends to...

An objective of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) in 2020 is strengthening relations with Africa through the African Union (AU). A summit was scheduled around the time of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Rwanda. Postponement...

I HAVE been focused over the last few months on the matter of Jamaica’s food security. In my series of articles, I identified possibilities for sustainable import substitution and export expansion, as well as prescribed structural changes to be...

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to rack up casualties. Every day new cases are being diagnosed as the disease spreads. We have a fair idea of how many people are infected and of death rates as data is readily available, even though we will never...

LATE LAST month, Sister Mary Paschal Figueroa died at more than 100 years of age. A Jamaican of middle-class background, she was a nun, a member of the Religious Sisters of Mercy, for over 80 years. As we thrash about to determine what kind of...

This is my fifth and final article on how to dramatically increase productivity, thus creating a virtuous upward cycle for improving the well-being of our people. I have previously shared six case studies demonstrating how diverse groups of us...

If Kamina Johnson Smith is understood correctly, it is the view of the Government that it has reserve powers, other than those under the Disaster Risk Management Act (DRMA), should they be required, for its response to the COVID-19 epidemic. It...

Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke has announced his intention to have a plan dealing with the ordered resuscitation of the Jamaican economy after COVID-19. To this end, he has assembled a COVID-19 economic recovery task force whose mandate,...

From the time I was five, I used to go cricket. We booed loudly and clapped intermittently when it was slow cricket. Then the TV came and, to my delight, it used to show cricket. We were able to see Lara get cheated in Australia and we thought of...

Having laboured to conserve Jamaica’s natural environment over decades, and encountering powerful opposition, I cannot help but notice similarities with current efforts to protect Jamaica’s population from spread of the novel coronavirus. There are...