'Good leadership a must for growth'
Published:Friday | November 19, 2010 | 12:00 AM
Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer
Milton Samuda, president of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce (JCC), is asserting that the nation's desire for sustained economic growth, which has eluded successive administrations over the past 40 years, can only be realised through strong leadership at the highest level.
Samuda yesterday cautioned Jamaicans that such leadership must come through the forcefulness of a unified civic body potent enough to coerce the Government to make the decisions required to advance the economy.
Addressing a luncheon of the Rotary Club of Kingston at The Jamaica Pegasus hotel in New Kingston, Samuda listed several factors that must be pursued by leaders with the resolve and determination to initiate the thrust for economic growth.
"We need to do many, many things, in no particular order of priority," declared Samuda.
"We need to ensure a stable macroeconomic framework; we need to have fiscal discipline; we absolutely must control crime, dismantle and rehabilitate garrisons and sever the obvious link between crime and politics," he added.
After outlining other needs, Samuda said recent events demonstrate, in the clearest possible terms, that a united civil society can make Government do the right things, even when it is hesitant so to do.
In the same vein, he urged civil society to demand the leadership it wants as well as the leadership necessary to foster economic growth.
"That is why it was important for the private sector to return to the Partnership for Transformation and to be at the table to hold the Government accountable for the very leadership promised from the bowels of crisis but needed for the soul of prosperity," he declared.
Make institutions work
On the need to reduce crime, bureaucracy and corruption, Samuda said part and parcel of doing that was having institutions which work - the police, civil service and regulators.
"More and more planners and analysts are recognising the need for insulating those institutions from political influence and simply allowing them to play their role in ensuring growth," Samuda noted.
He said in Jamaica, the need to reduce crime was patent, as individuals and businesses are affected.
"We need to eliminate the stranglehold which crime has on many businesses.
In dealing with crime, Samuda underscored the need to root out bureaucracy and corruption and remove the burden of the cost of "what we euphemistically call the runnings".
Samuda stressed that the private sector must not demand that the Government and the public sector do what the private sector is itself unwilling to do.
"If we hold politicians and public servants to a high standard of behaviour, we must be prepared to conduct ourselves similarly," he declared. "If a politician or public servant is taking a bribe, then it's axiomatic that someone is paying a bribe."