Hypocrisy of ‘Buy Jamaican’ campaign
OUR 1962 Independence has become dependence. We are still locked in the clutches of the so-called First-World countries which, having raped us, now dump their substandard and sometimes unwanted products on us.
We cannot squeal, even if we wanted to, since we have signed to World Trade Organization. We cannot shout “injustice!” because we have been weakened from the floggings of the Big Stick policies of the imperialists.
There is now a dark, ominous cloud of economic storm covering us. And we have sold out our economic birthright. We pass by our local manufacturers, artisans and craftsmen, and spend the resources of our children and grandchildren in shops filled with foreign goods.
We have become oblivious to the starving, malnourished cart-pushers, wayside sellers and itinerant peddlers who daily hope to earn a dollar a day to send a child to school for a week; pay the rent for a month and buy the food for the day. Our supermarket shelves are stacked with goods made in Trinidad; our haberdasheries, our hardware stores with things made in China and USA; our jewellery stores with valuables made in India, Europe and Middle East. We buy without a thought for the starving, malnourished child next door – all this while from one side of our mouth we say, “Buy Jamaican, Build Jamaica.”
We need to understand that trading locally owned businesses for foreign companies entails the loss of significant secondary economic benefits. Likewise, trading locally manufactured goods for foreignmade products ensures sustained employment in the country of origin, educates their population, grows their business, takes care of their sick, makes them wealthy while we, on the other hand, suffer the indignity of poverty and economic stagnation, run the risk of civil unrest, and forced brain drain.
BENEFITS OF LOCALLY OWNED BUSINESSES
Locally owned businesses keep profits circulating within the local economy. They also support a variety of other local businesses. They create opportunities for service providers, like accountants and printers. They do business with the community bank. They advertise through independent radio stations and other local media outlets. They purchase goods from local or regional distributors. In this way, a dollar spent at a locally owned business selling locally produced goods sends a ripple of economic benefits throughout the country.
By contrast, foreign multinational companies typically centralise these functions at their head offices. They keep local investment and spending to a minimum. They bank with big international banks. In this way, much of a dollar spent at a multinational company and on foreign goods not only leaves the local economy but places an added burden on the local currency.
Local independent companies also create economic diversity and stability. Because they are locally owned, these companies are firmly rooted in the community. They are unlikely to move and will do their best to weather economic hard times.
A country that ensures the welfare of another, without seeing to the welfare of its own, is effecting infidelity.
Here the efficacy of the national pledge becomes of extreme importance. The matter of economic growth is of urgent concern. We must now remove our tail from between our legs and point it straight out and up. We must “stand up for justice, brotherhood and peace”. We must not only “pledge the love and loyalty” of our hearts but realise with surety that love is an action word.
We must stop hiding behind the curtain of the International Monetary Fund preconditions and “pledge our hearts this Island to serve with humble pride” so that “Jamaica may, under God, increase in beauty, fellowship and prosperity.”