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The PNP manifesto
Published in the Jamaica Gleaner: Wednesday | August 15, 2007
Finally, we have the PNP manifesto a few days before election day. It would have been so much better if it had been published at least a month ago just after the date was announced. There is really too little time to analyse it thoroughly. Clearly the PNP do not intend citizens to vote for them based on the full programme they are putting forward, or to compare this manifesto with previous ones.
Their document reads well. It has a level of detail the JLP manifesto lacks. But then you would expect that. The PNP is the party in power and they have first-hand knowledge about what is on-going and what is the next step along the course of the strategies they have been implementing. It is because most of the document is an extension of current programmes that their manifesto should have been out long ago.
There is a remarkable similarity between elements of the PNP and JLP manifestos. If I didn't know better I might even be tempted to think that the first was an important source for the second.
Identical promises
In the education sector - most dear to my heart - the promises are almost identical: the PNP promise to abolish the shift system, to expand the school tenure of children to 14 years from kindergarten to grade 12, and to have compulsory enrollment and attendance. Why is it that just now before a general election, and after the JLP has made the same promises, that the PNP suddenly commits themselves to these things which they have not done over the last 18 years?
The PNP go on to promise 100 per cent literacy in five years, a laudable goal; but even Cuba which has the highest literacy rate in the region cannot achieve 100 per cent (it has proven impossible to teach some mentally ill children to read).
Since both the JLP and the PNP promise radical improvements in schooling should they win the election, the prognosis for Jamaican education is rosy. Whatever happens, hundreds more schools will have to be built to accommodate the additional children, and thousands more primary and secondary teachers will have to be employed.
The environmental programme of the PNP is better than the plan in the JLP manifesto. The PNP recommit themselves to "sustainable development of rural Jamaica" (p. 42), "sustainable industrial activity" (p. 25), and "sustainable economic growth" (p. 48). But do they really understand what sustainability means? In one place they speak of "sustainable ongoing reform" (p. 11). Surely they mean "sustained" ongoing reform. And then they say "sustainable source of financing" (p. 33) and "sustainable government programmes" (p. 35). "Sustained development" and "sustainable development" are quite different things, and I wonder if they know the difference? Sometimes I think that the syllables just roll of their tongues without their brains being in gear.
The PNP manifesto claims as "Landmark Achievements" the creation of "over 15 critical policies, plans and"; we are left hanging as the sentence is never completed. Several of those "critical" policies and plans date from before the 2002 election, and others before the 1997 election.
Credibility gap
None has as yet been satisfactorily implemented. The PNP leopard needs to convince us that it will change its spots during the next five years, and actually implement some of its great policies.
And maybe enforce even some of the environmental laws and regulations, please? There is a big credibility gap here.The PNP's intention to "expand programmes for the protection of endangered species and their habitats and the management of protected areas including marine parks" is welcome.
A party in power for 18 years is always going to have to answer the question why if they have not done it by now, we are to believe they will do it in the next 60 months
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