Boost our economy through policy and not spending

Jul 23, 2015 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
There has been lots of talk about how the economy appears sluggish. One newspaper commentator described his tour around the city, noting the slothfulness of some businesses; the opposition bemoans that it is fact the economy has slowed after the May 11 elections.
I don’t know whether the view of slothfulness is true, but I do recall Minister Trotman speaking about boosting the sectors where some decline is evident. This tells me that government is taking notice of what people are saying and also possibly sharing similar concerns. The Minister said that government stood ready to help with cash injection into the relevant sectors.
I would like to caution government here. Throwing money after bad or declining industries may be a bad idea. No one would take their savings and invest it into sectors that are declining, so the same should apply to the government coffers.
I know that some economic theories do advocate this, but this thinking did not take into consideration the strengths of institutions available to accommodate and ensure that funds are used efficiently to regenerate an economy that is in decline. Spending in a decline may have a place in government policy, but of equal and more importance is policy that enables economic investment.
One example, where this can work perfectly for government, is the mining sector. If government were to introduce a ‘use it or lose it’ policy, as it relates to land holdings, the future would be tremendous in that sector. To see how this would work, government should review the Obama policy in the domestic oil and gas sector in the USA. Lessons learnt from such a review will inform government about the tangible benefits of policy-making over cash injection, which can ultimately lead to more debts.
A policy of ‘use it or lose it’ will likely see land hoarders, called landlords, pump investment into their operations for fear that their land would be repossessed. This investment will likely cause gold and diamond production to increase and with it jobs. Financial transactions for ancillary products, such as groceries, oil and transport, will also increase. Land hoarders who can’t effectively use their lands will have to give them up. This freeing of lands will give the small miners an opportunity to invest and to use these lands more effectively.
The overall impact on this sector can only be positive. Government, if you are listening please do act.
Malachi James

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