Here we go? - Gleaner EDITORIAL: JLP on sale of the JPS

[Karl]

Boy Karl ... you no different from a suicide bomber. Unuh is a dangerous set.

Lazie, I have you pegged already! You see everything as the great JLP and the awful PNP. No place in your mind for reality.

I wonder if you have ever lived through a JLP or any other PNP reign? If you did you would have seen that both parties have come up with good 'talk' from time to time...and, abject failures that slowly devour us over time.

Just look at these few programs -
JLP's Edwin Allen - growth of technical high schools
PNP's Michael Manley - Free Eductaion for all

JLP's Robert Lightbourne - emphasis on import substitution of finished products with the so-called "screw-driver" industry - value added product - in manufacturing...as complementary to our agricultural base.
PNP's - programs to rationalise agriculture - production through to marketing (Remember the AMC - Agricultural Marketing Corporation?)

Look at various government's efforts to open up the tourism products to locals and to build on the pitiful early efforts when visitors were numbered in the hundred of thousands in the '50s to the millions who now visit.

Look at the Railway corporation's neglect under both "P's" and the demise of same.

Look at the rise of the garrisons? Who introduced the garrison to the Jamaica landscape?
JLP!
...and, who took the idea of that one garrison and 'run wi hit'?
PNP!

...and, what are we reaping from these garrisons? Bloodshed in the inner cities and excursions into the wider society of mayhem...and, the warping of the minds of our young all across the island. - Pox on both JLP and PNP houses here!

Neglect and or lack of expansion of road system, water system, sewage sytems...etc. - both as a result of PNP and JLP apathy.

...what of the indiscrimate construction of houses and other buildings? No plans to properly construct...continue construction of our cities and towns? - occurred over time under both "P's".

...and, on and on...

Walk up to the plate and wake up, boss! Call a spade a spade!

Cut the crap about merely changing one of the "P's" for another will suddenly change the hearts and minds of our people and dream that the multitude of areas needing immediate attention will suddenly find the funding...be funded to the U$ trillions of dollars that is needed. ...cut the crap about any "P" being able to solve all our problems overnight.

Aside:
When last the wife and I were in Jamaica (last Summer) we visited the Noel Holmes hospital in Lucea, Hanover. Three of our boys were born in that hospital (late '60s-early '70s)...Dr. Arthur Wint was our physician...what we saw was a crumbling poorly run, underfunded institution...but, in the 60s and 70s when we utilised the services of the institution it was also in a state of being 'run-down' and it was under-funded. 'Time' got it where we saw it!

I visited Manning's High school (student late '50s early '60s), Munro College (student early '60s)...both institutions had much better physical plants when I was a student. They where both underfunded in my school days...and, they are still underfunded and both have had their physical plants deteriorate. They could be said to be in a state of disrepair. ...and, so it was with Rusea's High School where I taught in '60s-early '70s period. Guess what? We have had both JLP and PNP governments during the intervening years!

Lazie: Point being under both "P's" there has been good talk...and...????

...and, who are those who rule as PNP and JLP MPs? If as I believe, that in Jamaica there is only 'one degree of separation'...then, we are all extremely closely connected...then, the failures and under fulfilling of potential must be 'fi wi fault'. Certainly it must be those failures and that under fulfilling of potential would then be more our collective fault than any small...minute group of sixty? Right?

...eeerrrrrr???? Lazie, yuh wake up yet...walk toward the plate, yet? (rueful smile)

[Comment]

Well Karl, at least you admit that they have been run

into the ground. This is an important positive first step on your part as we try to cure your addiction to cult issues.

In another session we will try to examine the concepts of accountability and responsibility.

In the mean time, try to stay positive and drink a lot of water. And remember to always take your medication. This should balance the powerful feelings of paranoia and desperation you seem to be continuing to experience.

[Lazie]

Boy Karl ... you no different from a suicide bomber. Unuh is a dangerous set.

[Karl]

The government? Running the JPS into the ground?
Exactly as the JOS was run into the ground?
...and, the sugar companies?
....and, Air Jamaica?
...and, all our state run entities?


The truth shall set us free!
It is our people who go to work everyday and do a poor job that run our state institutions and state entities into the ground.

How many of our former good private sector companies have bitten the dust and or have never fulfilled their potential? Is it the government of the day that ran them and is running them into the ground? ...or, is it our people? Yes, I am asking - 'those people'/we who go to work everyday?

I beg you look around? Look around at what is happening in public and private sector...in small and large commercial entities, sporting organisations...every sector of our life. Why is there the common 'running into the ground' and or 'not living up to true potential' of so many of these entities? You really thing it is 'government'? ...or, is it not staring us into the face that it is US?! ...yes, a wi a run di tink dem innah di grun...but, it is easy to point to the faceless...'di government' or whichsoever "P" holds office.

Merely switching from one 'P' to another 'P' has never solved our problems...in fact, under each successive 'P' the manitude of the problems have grown! Successive governments have instituted 'nice sounding programs'...but, the reality of the 'nice sounds' with delivery of that which was noised abroad has been humongous.

Yes boss, painful as it is to look right back at the face in the mirror - A fi wi fault!

Let every one at work (at whatever, each one does) produce near maximum capacity and sixty (60) persons preening in Jamaica's Parliament would be regaling us at every turn with 'look at the wonderful job we are doing'. It is never the MPs! It is always the people! MPs pale both in numbers and ability to wield influence when compared with 'we the people'!

[Comment]

No that is not what he is saying.

He is saying that the govt. of the day (ah..... that would be the PNP) ran the power company into the ground and saddled it with huge debt (which by the way Jamaican taxpayers still bear) with the same inept management they have used to run the economy into the ground and was literally forced and coerced into selling it for a song and now have to stand and watch as what was once an efficient and invaluable asset of the Jamaican people is pedaled for a massive profit without much benefit to the people of Jamaica whom it belonged to in the first place.

Oh....and that will not be allowed to stand.

[Karl]

Why is it Jamaica's have a problem with business entities ...and persons turning a healthy profit?

Is Mullings signaling that a JLP government will rescind any previous deal with the government and or quasi-government bodies they do like?

If so, we must just lump it?

[Karl]

EDITORIAL - Lessons from the Mirant deal
published: Friday | April 20, 2007

It is perhaps instructive that Jamaica Public Service (JPS) represents over 70 per cent of the nearly US$1.1 billion that the Japanese firm, Marubeni, intends to pay Mirant Corporation for its Caribbean electricity businesses once the deal is finalised.

The lesson is there to be grasped by the Jamaican Government, which holds 20 per cent of JPS, and must determine whether Marubeni is the partner with which it wants to go forward. What that lesson is not (unless Clive Mullings' declaration is something more compelling than knee-jerk arbitrariness) is that a transfer of JPS to Marubeni ought not "to stand".
Indeed, what we hear Mr. Mullings to say is that even if the deal is done and a Jamaica Labour Party administration is in office, in which we suppose he will be energy minister, the sale would be rescinded.

That is a potentially dangerous statement, as Mr. Mullings on reflection should realise, as would his party, even as the statement was being trotted out. It is tantamount to declaring to international firms that Jamaica is not open for business.

As we understand it, Mr. Mullings' objection to the sale is that Mirant is making too big a profit on the sale of JPS. When it bought the then near-bankrupt state-owned light and power company six years ago, Mirant paid US$201 million, in addition to acquisition of JPS's debt. Mirant is now selling at four times its purchase price. In the intervening years, JPS returned profit to its owners.

In the absence of all the information that was used to determine the value of JPS, it is not easy to determine just how well Mirant did on this deal. For instance, the cost of new plant and the general expansion of assets would have impacted pricing.

Mr. Mullings and others have, however, been critical of Mirant for what they see as its failure, during its tenure, to sufficiently invest,or invest appropriately, in JPS, in plant expansion and modernisation. Implicit in their case is that these failures have kept the cost of electricity high and weakened economic growth.

That may be true, but the ultimate failing is not that Mirant got a good deal for itself and is now being able to sell at a decent profit. The wrath of Mr. Mullings and other such critics ought to be aimed at the Government for having negotiated poorly, if that is indeed the case.
To insist that the deal should not stand is a clear anti-capitalist sentiment, unless there are things to be revealed about Marubeni that should make the firm odious to Jamaica. We know of no such things.
In fact, Marubeni is one of Jamaica's biggest trading houses, with a global reputation. It partnered with Tokyo's power company to purchase Mirant's electricity operation in the Philippines, and has in the past shown interest in acquiring Jamaican sugar factories. It has also, over many years, sourced plant and equipment for Jamaica.

On that basis, Marubeni seems to us a potentially good partner. What Mr. Mullings and the JLP need to ensure is that the regulatory arrangement agreed for the transfer commits Marubeni to the plant expansion and modernisation with an appropriate time frame that suits Jamaica's interest.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.