By: Silbert Barrett
The Government of Jamaica cannot speak for the thousand of Jamaicans who receives remittances. Families and friends should decide the extent of their relationship, not the government.
“Remittances pose a moral hazard problem by reducing the political will to enact policy reform. Compensatory remittances that insure the public against adverse economic shocks and insulate them from government policy reduce households’ incentives to pressure the government to implement reforms to facilitate economic growth.”
“In the absence of remittances, the typical evaluation of an economy’s ability to sustain its debt level relies solely on a comparison of the growth in the country’s domestic income vis-à-vis the interest rate on its debt”….The exchange rate effect on remittances, therefore, serves as a potential channel for offsetting the upward adjustment in the debt stock from a depreciation of the domestic currency.”
The policy of government not to allow the Jamaican Dollar to increase in value with the increased flow of remittances represents a continuous transfer of country’s wealth to the benefit of the rich instead of the poor. If the Diaspora money is being used to enrich special interest groups at the expense of the poor then is the duty of the Diaspora to demand that the question of Diaspora Voting be put to a referendum for the people to decide the extent of thier relationship with Diaspora Jamaicans.
Empowering the Jamaican Diaspora will break the stranglehold of special interest groups on the political and economic system who are refusing to support Diaspora Voting Rights to demand greater transparency, good governance, and prosperity for all so we don’t have to work so hard to send remittance home.
