Norris R. McDonald | ‘Dead money’ or prosperity? - Put Jamaica’s wealth to work

In 1995, Prime Minister P. J. Patterson ended Jamaica’s long relationship with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), setting the country on a more independent economic path.
It was a historic achievement that symbolised the hope that Jamaica could eventually finance its own development. Fourteen years later, Finance Minister Audley Shaw declared that Jamaica had “no other choice” but to return to the IMF.
In the words of a Pocomania revival chorus:
“It has been a long hard road to travel;
And we still have a mighty long way to go.”
But what have we achieved since then?
THE IMF, DEBT AND THE MANAGEMENT OF DEPENDENCY
Jamaica now has a massive national public debt of more than US$18.86 billion and not much to show for it.
The country is still borrowing money to import food instead of feeding itself. Hospitals are run down, schools are overcrowded, and nurses, teachers and other specialists have not been given a positive vision of the future.
Successive governments embraced fiscal discipline, debt reduction and balanced budgets. Yet stability alone is not prosperity. Many Jamaicans continue to struggle with stagnant wages, expensive housing, rising food prices, limited access to affordable credit, and inadequate opportunities to accumulate wealth.
This contradiction raises an uncomfortable question: If the ultimate purpose of economic policy is to improve people’s lives, why do so many Jamaicans feel excluded from the country’s apparent economic success?
This is the political-economy dilemma that must be confronted. 
ECONOMIC SUCCESS MUST MEAN FOOD IN THE POT
My friends, Jamaica’s economic success clearly cannot be measured only by debt-to-GDP ratios. The real test of development is whether Jamaicans can afford nutritious food, own decent homes, obtain quality healthcare, educate their children, establish successful businesses, and remain in their own country with dignity rather than feeling compelled to migrate.
Today, the national minimum wage averages roughly US$2.07 per hour and remains incapable of driving away the pangs of hunger that knock on poor people’s doors every night.
A nation cannot permanently celebrate billions of dollars sitting comfortably in overseas accounts while too many of its own citizens struggle to build wealth at home.
Money is meant to work through wise, creative investment to create prosperity, not lie dead in foreign banks like iced cadavers. 
JAMAICA’S ‘DEAD MONEY’ DILEMMA
Perhaps the greatest contradiction in Jamaica’s economic model is what may be called its “Dead Money Dilemma”.
By “dead money”, I mean foreign-exchange earnings that lie idle at low interest rates in foreign banks and are not being productively invested in local industries, agriculture and other sectors to create social, cultural and economic prosperity.
Jamaica currently holds approximately US$6.9 billion in foreign-exchange reserves – an impressive amount, but one that is clearly not helping to foster economic progress.
The larger question, then, is whether excessive financial reserves become merely “dead money” when they remain parked in low-yield foreign financial instruments while productive sectors at home remain chronically undercapitalised.
This is why it is important for us to accept the idea that money is not merely something to preserve or leave sitting idle in a bank. It is a productive asset. Like land, labour and technology, capital generates additional wealth only when wisely invested.
A country does not become prosperous by celebrating billions of dollars resting in overseas financial institutions while fertile agricultural land remains underutilised, factories operate below capacity, affordable housing remains scarce, and thousands of talented young people continue leaving because opportunities are insufficient at home.
Fiscal discipline should become the engine of national development – not the cemetery where dead money and national ambition are buried. 
FROM ‘DEAD MONEY’ TO ECONOMIC PROSPERITY
Jamaica therefore needs a serious national conversation about establishing an independent National Development Fund capable of transforming part of the country’s accumulated financial strength into productive national wealth.
This national investment must be outside direct government control, protected by special legislation, professionally managed, independently audited and fully accountable to Parliament.
In contrast to the Capital Development Fund established with bauxite and alumina revenues, it should not be accessible for government raiding, wasteful spending, self-enrichment schemes, or the repayment of foreign debt.
What do you think?
The concept itself is hardly revolutionary. More than 50 years ago, Michael Manley asked how Jamaica’s natural wealth could benefit Jamaicans rather than primarily enriching overseas shareholders.
The bauxite levy generated unprecedented public revenues, while the Capital Development Fund and the National Housing Trust demonstrated how national resources could be transformed into housing, employment and productive investment.
Today, that unfinished conversation has returned with renewed vigour in Africa and other parts of the Global South. 
PAN-AFRICANISM AND IBRAHIM TRAORÉ’S VISION
In West Africa, renewed discussion has emerged around ensuring that national resources contribute more directly to national development. One of the leading voices in that conversation is Ibrahim Traoré.
Whatever one’s views of his politics, the underlying economic question deserves careful consideration throughout the Global South: Should a nation’s wealth primarily enrich external interests, or should it become the foundation of domestic prosperity?
That question is hardly foreign to Jamaica. It was the same question Michael Manley posed more than half a century ago.
Now we must once again ask: How do we transform idle land into productive farms, idle hands into skilled labour, idle capital into productive investment, and turn “dead money” into living wealth capable of lifting people out of poverty and dependency?
Jamaica must make hard choices. It is not enough to keep hearing politicians boast that IMF targets are being met. What about black Jamaican workers and the middle class whose needs are not being met and who continue to live hand to mouth?
P. J. was right.
It is time for the IMF to be once again kicked out of Jamaica and for the country to put its “dead money” to work, creating prosperity for the nation and its people.
That is the bitta truth.

Norris R. McDonald is an author, economic journalist, political analyst and respiratory therapist. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and miaminorris@yahoo.com.