In Focus

M ore so than ever, academic curricula and gov ernment policy are being influenced by society's need for technology and energy conservation. The source of this policy shift is the knowledge that the financial stability of a nation's economy is directly proportional to innovation and creativity in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

The recent report that Dr Sandra Knight, chair of the National Family Planning Board (NFPB), has called for the revival of the debate on schools distributing condoms, in light of the discovery that one Corporate Area high school has some 60 per cent of its students in one grade being parents, leads back to the question of whether we will continue putting Band-Aid on our problems or deal with the wider issues that they point to.

Legislation is the business of the legislature. Governor General Sir Patrick Allen, speaking for the Government in the Throne Speech (not yet the People's Speech) at the opening of the new parliamentary year, last Thursday spoke glowingly of the 25 bills which were passed of the 33 tabled in the last parliamentary year.

For the first time in many years, Jamaica's national Budget has shown a decline in both real and nominal terms, with more than $80 billion being slashed from last year's Budget. Welcome to the new normal.

You are absolutely right; the IMF agreement is but a necessary rubber stamp, not a "lubricated conduit" towards development, if I may borrow an expression from former Prime Minister Bruce "Not in my Cabinet" Golding.

"This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!" (Exodus 32:4 NKJV)We are in the season of two major festivals, Easter and carnival, which some have argued have common roots in paganism, particularly in the fertility cults.

It's time to abandon Easter

As a former two-time chairman of the National Housing Trust (NHT), I have viewed with concern the numerous occasions when misleading information has either been made public by the media or by politicians in Government or in Opposition about the affairs...

On the issue of putting a lid on the lotto scam, the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party has accused the Government of dropping the ball. They are so right because they were in charge when the problem escalated.

The job of being a minister of finance in Jamaica must be an unenviable one. Trying to grow the Jamaican economy, behave fiscally responsible, generate macroeconomic stability, among other imperatives, is not a simple task.

Below are excerpts from an address by former Prime Minister Bruce Golding at a Jamaica Chamber of Commerce awards dinner.

Sometimes I sit down and I wonder. Have I been as brilliant as I believed for advocating over the past 25 years a system of separation of powers as Jamaica's saviour insofar as governance is concerned? In that system, we would vote only for the leader of the country's executive (prime minister), who would then have a free hand (subject only to due diligence by the people's parliamentary representatives) in appointing the rest of the Cabinet.