While in exile on St. Helena Napoleon was urged by his aides to write a book on military strategy. Why not let the world know the secrets of history’s finest general? The great man laughed. It would be easy to describe the details of his maneuvers. But what would be the point? It was not the theory that counted, but the actual doing. Execution was everything.

Anyone who has lived in Jamaica knows the reality of this truism. The nation’s major problem is not its political or educational or judicial or financial systems. Looked on objectively these are all fairly good in theory. Did not Singapore come to study the workings of our then highly regarded civil service in the 1960s? Systems pretty much like ours have worked well in Britain and many of its colonies for decades. But the implementation of these systems here – ah that is another story.

Jamaicans are a great people for grand platitudes and sweeping theories. We love to discuss hypothetical plans and solutions, but show little fondness for actually putting them into action. Big pictures excite us, while fine points bore us. But whether or not God is in the details, success surely is. A modest plan well carried out is always preferable to a brilliant scheme poorly implemented.

Many of our finest political minds waste precious mental energy pointlessly debating the merits of presidential and parliamentary systems. But from a global and historical perspective there is little intrinsic difference between them. Both function excellently when run by honest and competent politicians – presidential America and westminster Canada are two wonderfully successful countries. But neither system works well when inept and corrupt officials hold power.

Anthony Chang (no relation), the new president of the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce, firmly believes that our national success or failure will be decided by ‘nuts and bolts’. He agrees that a well thought out macroeconomic policy is vital for economic health, but considers the microeconomic side equally important.

“We in the private sector need to be honest with ourselves and recognize the need to upgrade and modernize our management practices. For years businesses here have operated in a protectionist environment. But technical advances in communications and travel have created a one world  economy. No nation can remain closed today even if it wants to. Free and fair trade is a world wide fact of life and we can only survive by adopting an open, outward looking orientation. A lot of businesses in Jamaica are experiencing tough times not necessarily because of government policies, but because they simply have not adapted to today’s more intense global competition and faster speed of change.

In my opinion Omar Davies has not done too bad a job on the monetary side. Frankly Jamaica has no choice. We can either have high interest rates and a stable dollar and low inflation or low interest rates and a sharply devalued dollar and high inflation. To his credit Dr, Davies has made a tough choice and stuck with it. I think once inflation has been gotten under control – and the signs are good – interest rates can be incrementally lowered and the dollar can gradually find a new equilibrium.

But if our fiscal deficit is not brought under control, the harsh monetary policies will have been pointless and all the necessary suffering it has brought will have been in vain. The government simply has to get control of the fiscal side of things and reduce spending. The Orane Report gave an excellent overview of areas in which spending could be cut. There have been some positive developments like the Moscow Embassy, but why have not more of these measures been implemented? We can not afford to play politics while our fiscal deficit continues to mount.

Yet we can’t sit around waiting for macroeconomic policies to work. We have to address microeconomic inefficiencies. How efficient is our private sector as a whole? Let us rank the government on a scale of one to ten in the areas of efficient use of resources, transparency, and honesty. Then let us rank the private sector. Would any honest person rank either very highly? I would personally put both at about 50%. And frankly the private sector should have a higher score. There is no country in the world where the government is more efficient than the private sector. People pay more attention when it is their money. It is only human nature. We in the private sector need to lead the way, yet at the same time we must lobby for change in inefficient government agencies which impact negatively on national productivity.

For example, we must improve the efficiency of our ports and customs operations. It is estimated that one third of actual customs revenue is lost due to inefficiencies. And this does not take account of the number of man hours lost through tardiness and delay. In today’s world time is money. And look at the huge number of illegal guns entering the country. These enter through our ports and should be stopped at the source. Why are there not metal detectors at all entry points to the island?

It is also vitally important to get an accurate estimate of our informal economy. People throw around numbers, but no one really knows how large it is. But how can we plan properly when we are not sure of the real size of the economy? A proper study needs to be carried out. Other countries have done it, so it is not impossible.

Private sector members are always calling on the government to be more democratic and responsive to the needs of the people. But should we not by the same token be more responsive to the needs of our employees and customers? Look at the take it or leave it attitude some businesses seem to adopt toward their customers. But in today’s world customer satisfaction is perhaps the most vital key to success.

Employee morale is also critical. Workers are now more educated and have a higher sense of self-worth. There must be consultation and dialogue with employees when decisions are taken which affect them. It is difficult for any business to be successful without a motivated staff.

Jamaica can not progress unless a trusting partnership is formed between the private sector, the government and the workers. Of course by government I mean not only politically elected ministers, but also policy advisors, permanent secretaries, technocrats and others like them. We all have the same goal of making Jamaica a productive and peaceful country. We have to work together, not against each other.”