FI WI CONCERNS - Michael Spence

Passport Fiasco

The Passport Immigration and citizenship Agency (PICA) recently announced an increase in the price of a Jamaican Passport from$4500 to $6500 has resulted in arguments and counter arguments from many quarters ranging from reasonable to unreasonable and unconscionable and wicked has prompted many questions. Such as why  such a steep increase for a small book the price of which in any bookstore would not be more than $300 Jamaican dollars while a thick Oxford Pocket Dictionary has not yet reached $2000 dollars containing thousands of prints and also couldn’t the increase be a phased one to eliminate the shock and awe from such increases?

PICA the distributors/sellers of the Jamaican/ CARICOM passport would do well to answer the following questions publicly which may well justify the pricing:

Where are our passports manufactured and or printed, designed in part or whole local and or overseas?

Is the Jamaican passport a most reliable secure and trusted document that cannot be duplicated, copied hacked or cloned whether opened or closed or is it just an unjustifiably expensive little book with one’s name?

Is the document issued unique to that person and what are the features that make it so for example does it have a unique chip or chips embedded within containing one’s details that require special keys/code to access this information and who has it?

What level of security, responsibility is there regarding transport, storage/safekeeping of security features?

What would be the process for a Jamaican citizen requesting a Jamaican passport meaning marked only Jamaica not CARICOM and would the cost of production be less than Jamaican $6500.

Have there been an audit and an assessment of the aims, objectives role and functions of PICA since it has been operating.

May I suggest that elaborative, transparent and demonstrative answers to these questions by PICA may well be able to justify to the citizenry present increases now being questioned by many? PICA should demonstrate why such a high cost for this essential little Jamaican book the passport also a book of hope and progress.28/05/15

Windsor Heights – St. Catherine

Occupiers of 1,250 lots in Windsor Heights, St Catherine, now face eviction from the properties many of them have called home for years. The property, which is owned by the ministry of Transport, Works and Housing, is approximately 280 acres comprising of approximately 1,500 lots. Give the people the land all of which is crown/capture land all around to the descendants of slaves making up the 60% squatter population. In the same way that the Chinese can get more than 1200 acres of land why Jamaicans cannot get 280 acres? Or at worst make their payments be reasonable property taxes on the said lands for the period of occupation. Jamaicans must not buy into the oppressive ideas that all governments try to sell us and keep us down to the benefit of others.25/05/15

  

Michael Spence

Taxation - David Trottman

This is the usual modus-operandi for the tax them to death “blood out of stone” PNP Government.  Like GCT this tax approach is flawed.  Kill the “sitting ducks” and forget the rest.  However, unlike GCT this tax will not have to be absorbed as an input cost but as PwC pointed out will have serious cash flow consequences for the service providers. 

 

By way of illustration, consider the GCT business environment as a huge tree with a trunk, several major branches and a vast expanse of minor branches and foliage out to its extremities.  The way GCT is supposed to work, it is the “foliage” (end-consumer) that should ultimately be left hugging-up the GCT.  However, because the GCT system is an “open loop” and there is no way to audit out to the extremities, the folk in the trunk and big branches (manufacturers; major distributors and similar value-adding elements) become sitting ducks for the tax them to death PNP Government.  Although GCT in many cases is unrecoverable, and has to be treated as an input cost by the productive sector, make no mistake, the end-consumer ultimately still bears the cost in higher prices; the country however suffers in terms of competitiveness in a global economy.

 

The real news with GCT is that the “open loop flaw” and the “law of diminishing returns” combine to limit its usefulness to squeeze additional blood out of that stone, hence the desperation to find a few more sitting ducks like the motorists, property owners, JPS and telecoms customers and financial services providers with this ill advised thin edge of the wedge withholding tax.

 

The gas tax and other burdens on the transport sector have already forced personal mobility to the “survival trip rate” with damaging consequences for the economy.  Is anybody tracking transport demand which is a “leading indicator” for where an economy is heading.  Ka-BOOM Nicodemus!!!

Fi Wi Concerns - Michael Spence

Renato Adams - Former police officer

Effect of Renato Adams On Crime In Jamaica

I recall while Adams was around regarding crime he had a kind of socio therapeutic effect on the population. Crime really is functionally a socioeconomic phenomenon that really cannot be tackled in isolation other socially supporting efforts.If you mash up the  economy, unemployment ,crime and a bundle of social evils accompany and then the police get basket to carry water ending up with even police, parson, lawyer, teacher,  committing crimes like ,robbery, extortion, fraud, scamming and murder.

Crime Is Big Business

Crime is also a multi  billion dollar business and if you were to eliminate crime people would be demonstrating in the short run "we want justice we want crime" because thousands would lose their jobs.Court house become wholesales ,police and lawyers become taxi drivers or farmers, prisons become colleges and you are allowed to imagine many more options. 24/04/15

The problem is that our large fines have no other objective than to collect taxes through a convoluted back door. It seems that police are being assessed and graded for promotion and a part of it is how many tickets they write .That in itself is a corruption of due process. Our authorities thrive on the multibillion industry of crime i.e. people breaking the various laws that require punishment and or imprisonment. Sooner than later you may be able to go to prison and pay for a 5,4,3,2.1 or no star room as long as you can afford it meaning you will soon have 5 star prison hotels where you can stay and run your business a road and gwaan mek money. That is a business opportunity Jam Law arrange the signing of a MOU nuh for even $4 billion to build out some graded star prisons where we can house prisoners from all over the world for a fee so what we have now is  a"Prison Tourism Product".25/04/15

The Tivoli Enquiry Chairman

Chairman Simmonds  is really a five star chairman in full control from week one - if you form the fool he will expel you. I rate him highly. The best I have seen in my lifetime. Do you recall an enquiry when the chairman started to snore during those proceedings and it was dubbed the "snoring commission". Chairman Simmonds is always on the ball "big him up".25/04/15

Jamaica A Criminal's Paradise!!!

For the past 10 years over 15000 murders how many people hung or on death row? Check it, any was hung and less than five on death row. Criminals/murderers are having a good time isn't this a Criminal's paradise? 26/04/15

Taxation

Did we really have to wait on a study to know that “JAMAICA'S taxation levels are higher than most of its developing nation peers”.We  have perfected tax and borrow economics. Soon the IMF  will have to learn from us and get us to teach other poverty stricken economies how to love and create the poor and enjoy the parasitic non productive lifestyle. Jamaica no Problem - every living and dead Jamaican know what UHY. An international accountancy network is just revealing that to themselves. 26/04/15

The Qur'an

Chapter in the QUR'AN named Surah 4:24 I read it and it seems to prohibiting slackness Surah4: 22 and 23.For example 22 says "marry not women whom your fathers married, it was shameful, odious an abominable custom indeed" In 23: "prohibited to you for marriage are your mothers daughters, sisters, fathers sisters, brothers, daughters, foster mothers who gave you suck and it goes on. Those whom your right hand possess I interpret to mean the woman who you are married to or in other words "fi you woman" nothing to do with, raping women, slavery or evil ideology.29/04/15

Legalize Abortion 

Quite frankly I believe that it is a wasteful argument  not to legalize abortion  in Jamaica.Women must be free to legally choose what they do with their bodies and even if they bear children. The fact is that abortion is going on everyday some dangerously in the shadows all around the country. I would have no problem with legal abortion, prostitution or euthanasia. Prostitution (consensual sex for a fee) also saves family life needed to maintain a stable society. 29/04/15

Downtown - A Disaster Happening!

I constantly said downtown was a disaster waiting to happen, now it is a disaster happening with someone being shot on the streets with greater regularity. I was almost shot myself, vehicle shot up and man beside me shot while we were both hugging the ground on upper King Street on the 4th of March 2015. Eight people shot thankfully none fatally, one police included. There needs to be some rapid interventions from West through Central to East Kingston to help reduce strife. The source of the killings is mainly gang /domestic related and less of rampant criminality/robberies which is also unacceptable. The more what is going on continues the more reprisals are fuelled and the danger of passers by getting shot increases without warning at times. If you hear shots just hug the ground I mean stay low and crawl to cover better than running. There is also need for hard intelligence driven and community policing. Hope "Bigga Ford" can help they need to get back McGregor also they both know the East, Central and West Kingston very well .Businesses are being affected large and small. The downtown economy is dying. 29/04/15

Getting A House

In the face of one bank posting a profit over a year in excess of $3 billion.Can you imagine a youth taking a mortgage on a $10million house at 10% for 30 years has incurred a debt of over $40 million before the keys are handed to them, then he needs a car he and a generation after him may be indebted for life if he takes a mortgage on the equity developed over time. This is where I think it is ripe for the NHT to enter the housing market, widen the clientele with lower rates thus forcing down the other regular market rates. If Jamaica is to make a significant dent in poverty interest rates have to get in line with the rest of the productive world while being more accessible.29/04/15

These Fines 

The problem is that our large fines have no other objective than to collect taxes through a convoluted back door. It seems that police are being assessed and graded for promotion and a part of it is how many tickets they write .That in itself is a corruption of due process. Our authorities thrive on the multibillion industry of crime i.e. people breaking the various laws that require punishment and or imprisonment. Sooner than later you may be able to go to prison and pay for a 5,4,3,2.1 or no star room as long as you can afford it meaning you will soon have 5 star prison hotels where you can stay and run your business a road and gwaan mek money. That is a business opportunity Jam Law arrange the signing of a MOU nuh for even $4 billion to build out some graded star prisons where we can house prisoners from all over the world for a fee so what we have now is  a"Prison Tourism Product".25/04/15 (Editors Note: DCP Grant says that the assessment system does not encourage police to issue tickets.)

Murders - What Have We Done?

For the past 10 years over 15000 murders how many people hung or on death row? Check it, none hung and less than five on death row. Criminals/murderers are having a good time isn't this a Criminal's paradise? 26/04/15