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Former Prime Minister the late Hugh Shearer along with Prime Minister P.J. Patterson and Opposition Leader Edward Seaga, after they were conferred with the honour of Order of the Nation in December 2002. Messrs. Patterson and Seaga were honoured at Kings House and they later went to the home of Mr. Shearer where he was presented with his award. - File

published: Sunday | July 11, 2004

By Kevin O'Brien Chang, Contributor

WHO WAS Ja's greatest prime minister? This is an unanswerable question, for politics has many facets. Who did more for their country, Gandhi or Lee Kwan Yew? So here is a simpler topic. Which PM did the best job of improving Jamaicans' quantifiable economic and social lot?

The most widely used measure for comparing countries' development is the UNDP Human Development Index, which combines life expectancy, illiteracy, and per capita income. Table 1 gives these figures for each prime ministerial regime. World averages are shown for comparison purposes. These are also divided into the Jamaican figures. A proportionate number greater than one means Jamaica was ahead of the world. Below one means we were worse than average.

CRIME

Since crime is a critical issue in Jamaica, homicide rates are included as a key measure of governance. No world homicide figures are available so United States murder statistics are used for comparison.

(Sources: World Bank, Jamaica Constabulary, USA Bureau of Justice Statistics. Data used: Life Expectancy at birth, Literacy Rate for adults 15 and above, Gross Domestic Product per Capita in constant 1995 US dollars, Homicide Rate per 100,000 inhabitants. Life expectancy and GNP figures start in 1962, but literacy rates are available only from 1970. The HDI uses per capita GNP based on purchasing power parity. This is not available from 1962, so raw per capita GDP figures are used here. The informal sector plays a significant role in the Jamaican economy, but no official data is available on our 'black market'. In computing Jamaican homicide rates the 1980 rate of 41.6 is treated as an aberration. The 1979 and 1981 rates are averaged for calculation purposes.) (See Table 1)

So Jamaicans lived 19 per cent longer than the world average in 1962 and 13 per cent longer in 1998. We were 23 per cent more literate than the earth mean in 1970 and 14 per cent more so in 1998. These slight declines are not surprising for a country starting from a relatively high base.

AVERAGE WORLD CITIZEN

In 1962 the average Jamaican earned 68 per cent as much as the average world citizen. Officially, Jamaicans are still 20 per cent poorer on the average than in 1972. Jamaica had a lower homicide rate than the USA up to 1972. As of 2002 it was over seven times as great.

Table 2 calculates the annual rate of change in life expectancy, literacy, per capita GNP, and homicide rate for each prime ministerial regime. For life expectancy, literacy, and per capita GNP positive is good. For the homicide rate the opposite is true.

World growth rates are also calculated for life expectancy, literacy and per capita GNP. These are then subtracted from the Jamaican rates to show how well we performed in a global perspective. A positive number means Jamaica performed better than the rest of the world. A negative number means we performed worse. For homicide purposes the Jamaican rate was subtracted from the U.S. rate. A positive number here means our homicide rate grew at a slower rate than America's. A number negative means ours grew faster.

The differentials in all categories are totalled for each administration and they are then ranked.
(See table 2)

There is little difference among regimes on life expectancy and literacy.

During the Bustamante/ Sangster administration Jamaica's per capita GDP rose at an average annual rate of 3.2 per cent, but this was less .1 per cent less than the world average of 3.3 per cent. The average homicide rate increase was 7.9 per cent, 1.7 per cent greater than the U.S.'s 6.2 per cent.

Under Shearer's stewardship, average income grew 3.5 per cent faster each year than the world average and our murder rate grew .2 per cent less annually than America's. His was the only administration where Jamaica became better off on an overall global basis. During the 1970s Manley regime per capita GDP fell in relative terms at a yearly rate of 6 per cent while the homicide rate rose at 9.1 per cent. Jamaica suffered its greatest relative decline during this period.

AVERAGE INCOME

Under Seaga, relative average income fell by .5 per cent and murder rose by .8 per cent each year.

The 1990s Manley Government saw comparative annual per capita GDP growth of 1.7 per cent while homicide increased at an average of 10.2 per cent.

During the Patterson administration the average income has declined relatively by 1.3 per cent each year and murder has increased at a 9.6 per cent rate to the end of 2002. The numbers rank Hugh Shearer as Jamaica's most effective Prime Minister followed by Edward Seaga, Alexander Bustamante/ Donald Sangster, the 1990s Michael Manley, P. J. Patterson and the 1970s Michael Manley. Ironically, a few years back, a poll showed that 55 per cent of Jamaicans regarded Manley as the Prime Minister who had done the most to better Jamaicans' lot, while only one per cent felt that way about Shearer.

GOOD POLICIES

There will always be controversy about who should get credit for what. Some leaders reap the benefit of good policies implemented by predecessors. Others inherit disasters not of their own making. But if those in power get the blame when things go wrong, then they deserve the praise when things go right. Still, the above figures are far from definitive and in a sense simplistic. They ignore factors like immigration shifts, oil shocks, Cold War disturbances, aluminum market collapses, debt, foreign aid, natural disasters, criminal deportations, drug gang wars, and financial crises. Perhaps our academics can give us a more sophisticated indepth study taking all factors into account. Numbers never tell the whole story, but they speak without political bias. It's easy to lie with statistics, but it's a lot easier to lie without them. So hopefully, these figures can provide a starting point for evaluating our leaders in a non-partisan manner.