Chairman/Editor-in-chief:
Rovan G. Locke, Ph.D.,
Consulting Editors:
Professor Ali A. Mazrui and
Lloyd B. Smith,
Pesident:
Malik E. Locke
Senior V.P. Operations/
Finance:
Reichland Anderson,
Senior V.P. Marketing and Sales:
Carolyn Kenedy,
V.P. Informational Systems:
Leona Minto,
V. P.  of Marketing:
Leroy A. Gordon -Jamaica;
Paula Powell: Editorial Consultant and Sanchia Allen-Sports/Public Affairs,
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Norris Grandison,
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Winsome Vaughn Burke,
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Publisher’s Perspective

In the past month Jamaica faced one of it most serious economic crisis in it post colonial experience. The rapid devaluation of the Jamaican dollar from $55 JA- $1US to $72JA - $1US, saw Jamaica reaching the political crisis stage of Aristide’s Haiti and Chavez’s Venezuela. It forced Prime Minister Patterson to dip into the Net International Reserves in order to stabilize the Jamaican dollar. This led to its revaluation at $60JA to $1US.
    From a political scientist perspective, Jamaicans came close to a military coup or a situation strikingly similar to what has taken place in Chavez’s Venezuela with the security forces being utilized to prevent a spontaneous and sustained masses’- uprising against the economic oppressive Patterson regime. It must be highlighted that if such an economic crisis had occurred in any country in the Ancestral Continent, the armed forces would have moved from the barracks and captured political power.
    Certainly the American trained political scientists within the Patterson regime, Dr Peter Phillips (Binghamton University) and my classmate at the University of Michigan, Dr. Paul Robertson must have shared these concerns with the Prime Minister and their cabinet colleagues. It was one of the most frightening experience for the political Directorate, the oppositional Jamaica Labor Party and the general public. On the eve of Prime Patterson “Message to the Nation” on Sunday night, May 18, 2003 there were ominous signs that Monday, May 19, would be a day of Mass Unrest unless something drastic was done to arrest this economic quagmire. It was an eerie feeling and it is an experience that this writer would not want to experience again in his life time.
    From Sunday May 4th, at the launching of the Jamaica Tourist Board Expo (JAPEX) thru Mother’s day’s events at the Little Theatre where the South Florida based Body Nation Dance Troupe engaged in charitable performances on behalf of the Maxfield Park Children Home and Vonnie McGowan’s Tribute to Women at the Jamaican Hilton, the dollar slipped from $55JA to $1US to $66 to $1US. From Monday May 12, to Friday May 16th, 2003, there was this uncontrollable slippage to $72JA to $1US. There were dark clouds over Jamaica and the Prime Minister moved from his ostrichnized political behavior and faced the Nation in regards to this economic hemorrhage in their midst. He pulled at least $100 Million US out of the $1.25 Billion US Net International Reserves and flooded the body politic with the necessary foreign exchange which led to a dramatic reversal of the Jamaican dollar devaluation.
    It is not an exaggeration to argue that the Jamaican political landscape faced its most potential catastrophic crisis in its first fifty years of Adult Suffrage. The 1970’s Michael “Joshua” Manley “socialist experience” and its attendant economic crisis did not come close to “these fateful weeks” of Sunday, May 4th, to Sunday, May 10th , 2003 which placed Patterson’s Jamaica at the same crisis level as Chavez’s Venezuela and Aristide’s Haiti. To get a better appreciation at how close Jamaican was to a “popular upheaval” it is important that we pay close attention to what the Governor of the Bank of Jamaica Derick Latibeaudiere said in terms of this most frightening economic phase. In a press briefing on the economic direction for the June quarter and the fiscal year 2003/2004 at the Bank of Jamaiauditorium in downtown Kingston on Tuesday, May 27, he pointedly stated “ We recognize that high interest rates are being replicated in the bond markets and have been affecting government’s cost of borrowing but doing nothing would have had even more severe consequences …… If we had allowed a continuation of the free fall in the exchange rate the consequential spiral in prices in an import driven economy would have such an adverse effect on all economic agents that the country could fall into social as well as economic chaos.

Don Crawford, 
Marvin Lee Chin and 
Gordon Butch Stewart.

Once again, the Patterson regime has been severely criticized within academic financial and journalistic circles for its double standards in regards to the JLP connected Jamaican mogul Don Crawford, and the ethnic minority moguls, Marvin Chin, of National Commercial Bank and the tourist mogul Gordon Butch Stewart. There have been biting critiques against the callous manner by the then Minister of Finance, Hugh Small followed by Dr. Omar Davies, against Don Crawford in the early 90’s, for buying the American Embassy’s foreign currency at the highest rate than the Bank of Jamaica’s specified rate in order to buy supplies aboard to complete the Ocho Rios’ located Renaissance hotel. At that time, it was argued by the Patterson’s financial advisors that it was a conspiracy hatched by the oppositional leader Edward Seaga to drive up the price of the American dollar in order to create on economic crisis so that the JLP would exploit this situation for its own political future. It led to the then Minister of Finance Hugh Small withdrawing more than half a Billion dollars that the Government had in its Metropolitan Parks and Markets account in Don Crawford’s Century National Bank. There is more than enough convincing evidence for financial and political analysts to argue that this action by the then Minister of Finance Hugh Small precipated the run not only on Century National Bank but on every other financial institution in the country which culminated in the total Collapse of the indigenous (Black) financial infrastructure, the emergence of FINSAC to take over these financial institutions and the micro-dependency of the Jamaican economy by Eastern Caribbean entrepreneurs, as we have witnessed with the Trinidadians Control of the multi-billion cement factory; the Mutual Trusts and Banks such as Life of Jamaica and Worker’s now jointly run as RBTT, (Royal Bank of Trinidad and Tobago) and the Barbados’ controlled insurance companies.  
    It must be borne in mind that the Patterson regime crippled the indigenous financial infrastructure. This has led to Don Crawford being in Atlanta; Paul Chen Young- “Eagle Bank Financial Network” and Delroy Lindsay Workers Bank residing in South Florida. Intriguingly it was strikingly similar behavior by Marvin Lee Chin’s National Commercial Bank and the Peter Moses’ managed Citibank which sparked the spiraling devaluation of the Jamaican dollar. The Business Observer Vol 9 no 29. Wednesday, May 14th, 2003 p28, broke the story on this speculative behavior of these two financial institutions and it placed the Patterson regime in an embarrassing situation. Under its headline, NCB now largest US $ net buyer, the story went on to point out “National Commercial Bank (NCB) is responsible for over two thirds of the US $36 Million in net foreign exchange purchases by currency dealers over the past three weeks- the period that marked the most aggressive devaluation of the Jamaican currency………NCB alone has held for its own account, the equivalent of US $25 Million via a combination of British Sterling and the greenback – transactions on which the bank would have enjoyed significant unrealized speciulative margins due to the continued devaluation of the local currency over the period…….Citibank which has also held US $11 Million over the three week period is the other institution with a sizable long position in foreign currency”.
    This story contributed significantly to the Jamaican dollar propelling from $60JA - $1US to $72JA - $1US in less than three days. The Business Observer Captured the fact that National Commercial Bank was facing withering criticisms for hoarding “some $120 Million US on its balance sheet” and that its managing director Aubyn Hill in a forthright manner, deflected these criticisms by making it known to those in the financial circles that “the actual foreign currency balance held on its own account was substantially less… Eighty percent of what we are holding is in government paper, it’s our customers money”
    Unlike the early 1990’s when the Patterson regime “brutally handled Don Crawford because of his JLP’s sympathies”, this time around, it dealt with both Citibank and National Commercial Bank with velvet gloves. In the case of Marvin Lee Chin, the troika of Patterson, Davies and Latibeaudiere have been very appreciative of this Jamaican born, Toronto based financial mogul’s huge investments in the Jamaican financial sector which contributed to the PNP’s historic fourth term on October 16, 2003. There was a “tete a tete between Prime Minister Patterson and Marvin Lee Chin/Aubyn to discus the charges of hoarding of foreign exchange. To put a positive spin to the Bank’s activites in the foreign exchange market, the chairman announced a $150 Million (JA) scholarship program for ten years to pay for those high school students taking science and mathematics in the CXC examinations.
    Interestingly, the Prime Minister has not yet called in Gordon “Butch” Stewart to ask him when he is going to start to repay the nine ($9) Billion (JA) to the government for guaranteeing loans for Air Jamaica. What’s most bothersome is the glaring fact that it would appear from the Minister of Industry and Tourism, Aloun Assamba’s opening speech at JAPEX on Sunday evening, May 4th at the Jamaica Hilton, that the Jamaican government has advanced another $30 Million for Air Jamaica to “see its way through for the next three months”. According to Minister Assamba, “Our National airline Air Jamaica, like airlines globally, has suffered in the aftermath of the September 2001 tragedy and subsequent developments which have placed the airline industry in a precarious financial situation. The government of Jamaica recognizes the vital role of Air Jamaica in the island’s tourism and has recently moved to increase its share in the ownership of the airline. Management of the airline will remain in private hands. The management is working both to increase efficiency and enhance the service in this extremely difficult period for this industry”.
    It is quite clear that the Patterson regime lacks the “Political will” to deal with the continuing fleecing of Jamaican tax payers by the hierarchy of Air Jamaica. Here is a regime that is having extreme difficulties in raising foreign exchange loans on the global market, and yet, it continues to pump its own scare foreign exchange in a highly mismanaged public/corporate entity. You would have expected that the government would at least followed the Japanese government’s model of public/private joint venture. In its recent take over of some of the major banks, the Japanese government insisted that it would have control of two thirds of the new Board of Directors. This is not the case with Air Jamaica.
    The time is long overdue at ask some pertinent questions to Prime Minister Patterson and to Honorable Audley Shaw, Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee within Gordon House. Why is it that there are not any attempts to put a new Board of Directors for Air Jamaica? How much is Gordon “Butch” Stewart and the hierarchy of Air Jamaica being paid by that corporation? How much is being paid to the in-house advertising agency? Who owns Air Jamaica Express? Is the government bailout funds for Air Jamaica being utilized to buy airplanes and pay staff for the privately owned Air Jamaica Express? How much is being paid to special friends of Gordon “Butch” Stewart from Air Jamaica’s funds’ which are regarded as special marketing /public relations contract? Why is that attempts are not being made to sell Air Jamaica’s stocks owned by the government as is being done with the government owned Jamaica Public Service Company’s  stocks?
That is the bottom line. 

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