Wealth management literacy should be a must

LAST week the iconic Mr Usain Bolt gave us information most of us had already assumed. That, while US$12 million had been stolen from his account at the investment firm Stocks and Securities Limited (SSL), he was “not broke”.

Of course, the loss of so much money, equating to about $2 billion, has left him seriously stressed.

The harsh truth, though, is that reports suggest there are others who have been completely wiped out by the enormous swindle at SSL — their life savings all gone.

That reminds us of the old saying, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

Undoubtedly, many people are lured into investing the way they do because of attractive interest earnings on offer. That brings us to another old saying, that “if something seems too good to be true, it probably is”.

A considerable number of people who lost their money in Jamaica’s financial meltdown of the 1990s and in numerous Ponzi schemes before and since can relate to that.

It’s a fact that many, including highly educated people, know very little about financial management. Worse, some can’t be bothered with the finer details of such ‘boring’ matters, preferring to leave it to brokers, accountants, even lawyers.

And yet Jamaicans have been hearing for a long time that everyone, individually, should protect themselves by becoming financially literate — learning the ‘ins and outs’ of savings and investments.

Only last month the Government’s information arm, Jamaica Information Service told Jamaicans of a financial literacy seminar for public sector workers. That seminar in mid-december was closely tied to the Government’s new compensation system for the civil service and sought to enhance knowledge on such matters as money management, wealth creation, pitfalls to avoid, and retirement planning.

And last August, Minister of Education and Youth Mrs Fayval Williams pointed to the need for Jamaican schoolchildren to be exposed to financial literacy.

At the time, she urged business graduates from the University of Technology, Jamaica “to help us in our primary schools, in our high schools” to impart financial knowledge to children.

We heard then that regulator, Financial Services Commission, now under fire for alleged weak management of the lead-up to this current crisis, had created a Schools’ Financial Education Programme, “which teaches children and young adults how to take charge of their own financial future and make wise financial choices”.

Beyond weighty matters such as financial securities, there are very basic aspects of wealth management to which Jamaicans have too often paid scant regard and about which there should be proactive efforts to educate.

Only last week in Manchester, Justice Minister Delroy Chuck reminded us of the reluctance by Jamaicans to make a will — a legal document clearly detailing how one’s money and property should be handled, shared, or disposed of after death.

Anyone who has ever had to sort out inheritance knows of the headaches and hefty costs involved, especially if there is no will.

And, as Mr Chuck said, absence of a will can also lead to tension, hatred, violence, even death as apparently happened in Manchester recently.

“Nothing creates more problems than ‘dead lef’,” said Mr Chuck. That’s the gospel truth.