Shaw cutting in all the wrong places

AGAIN, THE Government has seen it fit to cut the budgetary allocation to youth and education, which could be reasonably interpreted as the State not seeing both as priority areas of national life which should be jealously guarded.

At the same time, the Golding administration, which is strapped for cash, has ensured that money is put aside in the revised Budget for the purchase of a motor vehicle for new House Speaker, Marisa Dalrymple Philibert.

Notwithstanding the fact that it is going to cost far less for the Speaker's new vehicle, the lack of coherence in the spending of taxpayers' money flies in the face of austerity measures the Golding administration claims to promote.

The Gavel makes no bones in suggesting that the Speaker should have been encouraged to make do without a new vehicle. The fact that Finance Minister Audley Shaw has seen it fit to include the provision in the Budget for a car for her smacks of hypocrisy, considering that government MPs, citing tough economic times, gave up five per cent of their salary to signal their willingness to unburden the Jamaican taxpayer.

Considering that Dalrymple Philibert has been the recipient of a government concession for the purchase of her current motor vehicle, we believe it is unconscionable of her to heap another $4 million-plus burden on the overtaxed, underserviced public. It is even worse when one considers that the life of the Parliament expires next year. She has just taken over the big chair from predecessor Delroy Chuck in the fourth of Parliament's five-year life.

While the Speaker is to get a new car, Mr Shaw has proposed major cuts to two critical areas of human resource development: youth and education. In the area of youth, a total of $165 million, which was set aside for the construction of youth information centres and the training of young people, has been put on the chopping board.

A familiar story

At the same time, some $800 million that was earmarked for the building of schools is being taken away. The finance minister has long telegraphed the cuts, having found that the package he presented to the country in April was not credible.

Warren Newby, the parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture, told this newspaper last week that delays in the procurement process are to blame for the Government's decision to put off the building of youth information centres this year.

But to us, that is a familiar story. It was the same reason that was given last year when $30 million was sliced from the programme. Then, Newby said the construction of the centres in Spanish Town and May Pen would have started in April. It is now September, and not even a single concrete block has been laid.

Youth information centres are cybercafés which run programmes, including counselling, entrepreneurship classes, and educational support for young people. Social scientists have long held that people, especially young people, lose faith in Government whenever they fail to deliver on critical promises. We fear that the death of the centres could be imminent if the Government continues to pussyfoot around with the implementation of these programmes.

The Government has advanced the same procurement issue as a reason for the delay in the building of three schools. Again, it is an argument we don't buy. Mr Shaw needed fiscal space to accommodate his foolhardy omission of the seven per cent increase to public-sector wages in the original Budget, and found it expedient to punish the education system.

Education has been the target of Mr Shaw's carving knife. The Capital A budget has been reduced from $1.9 billion in 2009-2010 to $464 million in April. On the Capital B side, which is funded by external partners, allocation to education has increased from $768 million in 2010-2011 to $2.7 billion in April, which is to be reduced to $800 million.

It should not be lost on any of us that Jamaica's education system has been on a slippery slope. There are serious issues of teaching quality, classroom space, and other resource issues that need to be addressed. If Jamaica is to stem the tide of crime and violence and stimulate economic growth, it must remove the impediment in the education system which leaves half the students of school-leaving age without skills or certification.

One does not have to wonder from where we get the rich and steady supply of young people for gangs.

Deep, disturbing cuts

The Gavel is not unaware of the financial bind in which the Government finds itself, but we submit that if Minister Shaw was being clinical and more cerebral in his governance of the Treasury, youth and education would not have suffered the deeply disturbing cuts. When one looks, for instance, at the hundreds of millions in waivers that are being dished out at the Ministry of Finance, we see where youth information centres and schools could have been built if the Government considered these areas priority.

Since the start of the fiscal year, Shaw has approved discretionary waivers amounting to more than $2 billion. This comes against the background of the freeze on these waivers. This newspaper reported in March that a European Union-funded consultant found a nearly 55 per cent increase in the value of waivers granted by the finance ministry, despite a freeze imposed by the Government last August.

The document states that before August 1, 2010, the monthly average of foregone revenue because of waivers was $907 million. After the freeze was put into effect, the average monthly revenue foregone increased to $1.4 billion, the document added.

The monthly average has since been reduced, but the leakage of revenue remains massive. And instead of moving expeditiously to plug this leak, the Government has decided to punish the children through cuts in order to bring credibility to its incredible Budget.

At the same time, Shaw is barefacedly providing a new car for the speaker of the House even though the life of the Parliament expires next year.

Something just does not add up, and if only for the symbolism of it, the Speaker should be asked to suck salt through a wooden spoon, too. It is such a pity we have decided that is the best medicine for our children.

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