My apartment is near Half Way Tree Transport centre, which is one of the busiest places in Kingston. It is a hub of commercial activity and tens of thousands of people pass through it every day. Not surprisingly, as a result it also attracts a lot of nefarious activities like prostitution and some illegal exchanges. And homeless people. There are a few who live on my street. There are also a number of them living along the main corporate district. I pass them when I run early on the weekday mornings. The sight never fails to affect me, either intellectually (how did they get there? what resources are available for them? are they okay?) or emotionally. There are also young boys trying to sell chocolate. They are persuasive and hard to resist and I am still struggling with how to respond. Other young boys stand at major intersections and squeegee car windows. All this to say that poverty is widespread and blatant in Kingston. As I said, I am still struggling with how to respond, what to think and feel about it all. The other day, however, something hit me harder than it has in the five months I have been here. A new homeless man has set up camp down the road, first under a tree, where he has since left after somebody cut the grass around it. He now lives among some tall grass and garbage just down the street. He talks to himself and he wears a green t-shirt and blue shorts and sometimes he is asleep. He is thin and dirty. One day I was returning home with some groceries. As I passed by, he stuck his hand out and said “biscuits.” Something about the look in his eye got to me and I can’t recover. At that time, I gave him some food and have given him more when the opportunity is there. He seems to have moved on now, however. But I just keep wondering, does anyone care about him? Do they miss him? Does he have a doctor? A family? Somewhere to sleep? Somewhere with privacy and safety? Is he mentally ill? How did his life start out? What is his name? I suppose there are thousands of situations like this here in Kingston and around the world. How do you harden your heart enough to get by yet still remain a caring person? How do you help people in this situation? Whose responsibility is it to help them? Or is it solely their own responsibility to avail themselves of social services? As far as I can tell, homeless shelters are not commonplace here. I obviously don’t have any answers to these questions and I don’t know how to forget about this man. For some reason lately, the poverty is getting to me a lot more than it ever has in the past.

Last week, the University of West Indies hosted a conference about Jamaica and the nation’s way forward in a time of uncertainty. I attended a few of the panels and it was fascinating. I was asked to write an article about one of them, so it is posted below. It is perhaps a bit dry, but it gives you an idea of the major cleavage between the private and public sector and the major trust deficit that exists between all Jamaicans. The panel I attended included some of Jamaica’s most powerful businesspeople and their comments were anything but dry. In fact, they were provocative and I hope the right people were listening. Enjoy!

Omar Azan, owner of Boss Furniture, is the kind of hands-on CEO who inspects everything in his factory himself, right down to the washrooms. So during one routine inspection, Azan discovered that the toilet paper was made in China. He immediately got on the phone to his supply manager, asking why it did not originate in Jamaica and had what he saw as a problem fixed.

This action, he said, “set a parameter and set a precedence.” Adding that “Jamaica needs a major cultural and political change,” Azan made these statement at a panel on the private sector’s involvement in Jamaica at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies. The conference, held just after Jamaica’s 50^th anniversary of independence, addressed issues relating both to the past and to the country’s way forward.

Azan was joined on the panel by four other businesspeople: Chris Zacca, head of the Private Sector Organization of Jamaica, Joseph Matalon, businessman and former PSOJ head, Donna Duncan Scott, an executive with Jamaica Money Market Brokers and Jimmy Moss Soloman, a director with Grace Kennedy.

The panel discussion covered a range of topics, from taxation to productivity to corruption, and after each presenter gave a 10 minute speech, the audience was given the opportunity to ask questions. While the range of topics was broad, the general sentiment amongst both presenters and listeners was that Jamaica needs stronger leadership and that economic growth is the key to a successful nation. And Azan’s plea for leadership and a renewed focus on the economy was reinforced by his fellow panelists.

“Failure to grow the economy is the single biggest reason for all the ills we suffer,” Zacca told the audience. Zacca also called on leaders and citizens alike to unite and for civil society and government to work together with more cohesion.

As the first presenter, Donna Duncan Scott stated that while the country diverges when it comes to specific goals, most everyone agrees that every citizen should enjoy a minimally acceptable quality of life. “We need a Jamaica that works for everybody, and for the last 50 years we have not done that. We need clarity of direction,” she said, referring to the government’s Vision 2030 document, which sets priorities for the next 18 years. Duncan Scott also demanded improved collaboration between the private and public sectors. However, underlying all these plans and schemes must be an atmosphere of trust, which is currently lacking, Duncan Scott said, citing a PEW research study that shows that only 14 per cent of Jamaicans feel that their fellow citizens and institutions are trustworthy.

From an international perspective, Grace Kennedy’s Jimmy Moss Solomon rejected the notion that foreigners can prescribe solutions to uniquely Jamaican problems. “They don’t take into account our culture,” he said. Part of this culture, he said, is the inefficiency of government. Instead of encouraging economic growth, as it should, government acts as an impediment to healthy economic growth. “We are not running Bolt’s race, we are running Foster Hylton’s race,” he said, referring to the Jamaican athlete who competes in hurdles.” Another impediment to growth is crime and corruption, he added. “We need to operate without the costs of doing business in a war zone.”

Joseph Matalon, prefaced his comments with some statistics: 0.9 per cent growth in GDP per annum, umemployment stuck in the double digits, and the undercounting of GDP. He then made some strong statements about the country’s inability to change. “We have an  implementation deficit. We suffer from extraordinarily low levels of trust and inertia and inaction.”

Moss Solomon concurred in later comments. “We pander to corruption,” he said, “which is a real symptom of a lack of self-confidence.”