Miss P's Patty Shop

Some interesting points of view came out of the luncheon hosted by 'Butch' Stewart this week, views that have been echoed by countless groups at countless luncheons over the years. The government should invest more money in education, more in crime fighting and prevention and create a tax environment that will foster growth, et cetera, et cetera.

One would think that by now the government would seriously explore or, at the very least, look at some of the ideas being presented. After all, these dudes are very successful businessmen in a not-so-successful country. They might have good ideas about making money and investing it successfully, ideas that the current government seems to need pretty badly, especially given their decision to spend billions on the ICC World Cup while the country is in a decrepit moral, educational and physical state.

Both sides of Gordon House would serve the country in a much needed way if they spent more time exploring feasible solutions to the country's problem instead of arguing about who wears short pants and other asinine topics. The country needs to be run like a business and not like Miss P's patty shop. In a well run business executives are given specific targets to meet and are held accountable for not meeting those targets. Accountability is, and has been for a very long time, non-existent in the Jamaican government's vocabulary. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only minister that I can think of who has resigned or been fired because of the non-performance of his ministry is K. D. Knight, and he was simply reassigned to another ministry. We need to start choosing the right people for the right jobs and holding these people accountable. This means making the Minister of National Security someone who actually has experience in that field and not some politician who has no fucking clue about what to do about crime. The same goes for all the other ministries. I firmly believe that this step must be implemented to get us out of the quagmire we're currently in. Too bad the same politicians who refuse to hold themselves accountable are the ones who'll have to implement it.