JLP Elder Rethinking

Baugh laments government failure to boost development

Published: Thursday | July 15, 2010

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER Dr Ken Baugh has lamented the failure of successive administrations to find a workable economic plan for the sustained development of the country.

Addressing the House Of Representatives during the 2010-2011 Sectoral Debate on Tuesday, Baugh said several initiatives have been pursued, "some of which should have brought us success, but it has not been achieved".

"The great social experiment of the 1970s, with the State controlling the commanding heights of the economy, together with the high price of oil, ended with economic collapse," Baugh said.

The Opposition People's National Party (PNP) had pursued the socialist agenda under the leadership of the late Prime Minister Michael Manley.

Baugh also knocked the folly of his party's 1980's free-market experiment.

He told Parliament that "the structural adjustment and deregulation of the economy in the 1980s, which gave rise to private sector-led growth, but with insufficient trickle-down effect" did not help the country either.

According to Baugh, not even the period which saw Jamaica focusing on export-oriented industries such as tourism, bauxite, agriculture and manufacturing helped the country achieve equality.

"Jamaica has never been successful in correcting the legacies of its past, principally the dismantled family and community institutions, poor infrastructure of water and roads and absence of the capitalisation for growth and recovery," Baugh said.

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