Omar Azan is a manufacturer and among the last of a dying breed. Gone are the days when the Jamaica Manufacturers' Association's (JMA) members employed thousands of Jamaicans at liveable wages.

The P.J. Patterson administration was not able to create the 40,000 information technology jobs promised; the education system was unable to support such a grandiose scheme, anyway.

We had a sugar industry, but no high-end jobs in sugar refining; there were no computer-assembly jobs, no pharmaceutical-manufacturing and clinical-development jobs, no oil trading and price-discovery centre jobs, no cellular-phone assembly plant jobs, etc. No wonder the central bank Governor Derick Latibeaudiere was able to publicly humiliate Mr Azan by referring to his suggestions as nonsense.

Davies and the manufacturing sector

Former Prime Minister Patterson and former Finance Minister Dr Omar Davies decimated the manufacturing sector with failed policies executed by Mr Latibeaudiere. Those policies led to the rise of the paper economy and Ponzi schemes.

Mr Latibeaudiere is an erudite, sophisticated central bank governor and among the highest paid in such a post in the world. In fact, he earns more than Mr. Bernanke, the chairman of the United States Federal Reserve.

Bruce Golding's failure to 'change course' because of the fear of market jitters has led to the deepening of the financial crisis. Dr Davies has become the darling of talk-show hosts and civic functions, as he attempts to justify his FINSAC restructuring policies. Mr Golding and his three 'finance ministers' must summon the courage to fix the country's economic problems.

I am, etc.,

Mark Clarke

mark_clarke9@yahoo.com

Siloah, St Elizabeth