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LAST WEEK was not a good one for our two major daily newspapers.
One daily concentrated on the 'estimated benefits' that Air Jamaica brought to the country during the past 10 years, and the other focused on the recently declassified data on the 'cost' to the country of the Prime Minister's travels over the past four years.
Apart from being estimated by the MIT scholar who put the Air Jamaica benefits study together, the study became controversial because it, by admission of the author, avoided any of the actual and very substantial costs incurred by the company in its quest to secure those largely estimated benefits.
No doubt, there are people who get quite irritated when they are reminded that any discussion of the revenues and benefits brought by Air Jamaica must be balanced against the relevant and actual costs incurred by the airline company to produce those revenues.
Anyone who has a rudimentary understanding of business fully understands that if a company's revenues keep growing at a fast pace, but its costs are growing more rapidly and outstripping the revenues, then eventually that company will go bankrupt.
'LIVING LARGE?'
This newspaper carried the caption above this paragraph as its front page headline on Sunday July 31, and the writer proceeded to disclose the cost of the Prime Minister's travels over the past four years.
In this case, none of the benefits of those travels were disclosed with the cost so that the readers of the article could make a balanced judgement on the issue.
Also, at $21 million over four years, the cost of prime ministerial travel is a bargain - certainly for anyone who has any kind of personal experience with international travel. The PM's travel cost was the wrong item to choose to beat him on.
The matter led me to consider the pay and travel benefits of the Prime Minister and his ministers versus those of chief executive officers (CEOs) and senior executives in large companies and partnerships.
By now, everyone knows that the Prime Minister makes $4.7 million per annum as basic pay.
I consider this paltry when the responsibility of whoever holds that office is weighed against those of a CEO of a large company - and the pay and benefits of that CEO compared to the PM's.
In this case, the Prime Minister was a very successful lawyer in a well established law firm. I checked on what the senior partners in a big law firm would make today and the answer I got is their basic pay (without benefits) would be in the range of $9 to $15 million per year.
It is fair to say that CEOs of big local conglomerates and banks may receive upwards of the top of the range that the law partners get paid.
It is also true to state that there are many senior executives (below the rank of the CEO) in banks, law and accounting firms and other private sector businesses who earn much more than the Prime Minister does.
Bear in mind that one cannot generally save from non-cash benefits, so the basic salary of the individual is crucial in creating a future nest egg.
I checked and found out that the per diem of US$300 was set by former Prime Minister Edward Seaga on March 1, 1989.
The present Prime Minister has never changed it and indeed has taken only US$250 of the allocated US$300 per day when he travels.
FANCY OVERSEAS HOTELS
The allegation is made that the Prime Minister and his delegation stay in expensive foreign hotels and with the insinuation by a travel writer in New York that the PM stays in hotels in that city that overlooks Central Park. In other words, expensive ones.
There are times in the past when my business travel has taken me to New York when the Prime Minister and his delegation have also been in the city.
I am fully aware of senior executives from Jamaican companies being in New York city at the same time as the PM and we would stay in hotels on Park Avenue (I imagine called fancy but convenient for the business that had to be done), while the Prime Minister and his delegation stayed in much less opulent hotels on the west side of the city.
I am aware that the same thing happened in Toronto where Jamaican businessmen stayed in the Four Seasons hotel which is located in the most ritzy part of the city, while the Prime Minister and his delegation resided in a downtown hotel that was significantly more ordinary and much less pricey than the hotel accommodations of the Jamaican businessmen.
PUTTING 'COST' AND 'BENEFITS' TOGETHER
Now that these two controversial issues are solidly in the public domain, it might be very useful for the editors of our two daily newspapers to commission independent studies that would finally get the 'costs' and the 'benefits' together in one place in the same report (or article).
After all, this is not rocket science and we have enough academicians and technically capable people in the country to carry out an objective set of studies on these two issues.
Really, these two private sector institutional newspapers do not need a parliamentary enquiry to go and get the facts if they want to get to the bottom and to the truth of these two issues. In our Jamaican context, they do have the resources to handle these issues more comprehensively.
INCREASE PAY AND ACCOUNTABILITY
I am a solid advocate for better pay for those persons who hold the position of Prime Minister and ministers of the government of Jamaica.
I am also a solid advocate that we should have the best people in government and that they should be very accountable for their technical performance and behaviour as ministers of government.
At present, the Prime Minister of Jamaica gets a basic salary of $4,706,344 per annum; the Minister of Finance gets $4, 029,092 per annum and each other Cabinet minister is paid $3,746,641 per year.
Compared to the basic pay of Jamaican CEOs and senior executives, this is not enough.
The former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, in his tome From Third World To First made the following observation: "After several years in government, I realised that the more talented people I have as ministers, administrators and professionals, the more effective my policies were, and the better the results."
The leaders of our two major parties need to take that observation as unpaid, priceless and extremely valuable advice.
If we are going to have more and better ministers who deserve more pay, then all parties would have to choose more qualified men and women as candidates and hold them to a much higher and tougher standard of integrity, performance and behaviour than has been the case in the past.
Pay for performance should be a concept that is fully endorsed by our political leaders and practised by each prime minister and his or her ministers.
Under-performing or incompetent ministers and senior government officials should be fired when their performance is not up to scratch.
Conscientious editors of newpapers can provide a really valuable public service by ensuring that objective, thorough and accurate cost benefit analyses are done on the performance of our ministers and government agencies where taxpayers' money is being spent by the governments that we elect.
Source: Jamaica
Gleaner
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