‘Dutch disease’ could be in Jamaica’s future

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Clifford James is entirely deserving of April 18, Saturday Gleaner Letter of the Day. His intervention on Jamaica’s prospective oil windfall is not merely timely; it is necessary civic instruction. Kudos to The Gleaner!

So, permit me a brief personal datum to frame my concern: 34 per cent of my first three decades – my most productive youth – were spent in Trinidad and Tobago and in Mexico, two geologically oil-rich jurisdictions whose lived lessons I cannot ignore.

Much is loosely called “Dutch disease” (Michael Manley cryptically called it “ a dose-a-Epsom-salts”), but let us be precise. It is the economic distortion that follows a resource boom: foreign exchange surges, the domestic currency strengthens, imports become cheaper, and – fatally – local productive sectors (manufacturing, agriculture, even tourism) become uncompetitive. Labour and capital drift toward the booming extractive sector; governance, too often, drifts with them.

In Trinidad and Tobago, I saw a society periodically flush yet structurally shallow – import dependence deepened, innovation thinned, and public expectations rose faster than productivity. In Mexico, oil revenues once underwrote expansive state ambition, but volatility and centralised control exposed the fragility beneath the sheen. In both, the promise of broad-based prosperity was cramped – not by geology, but by governance.

Here is the sharper warning for Jamaica: this is not a time for any hero minister (or ministers). The “one-man” stewardship model – however charismatic – has historically amplified the curse. Oil demands an evidence-based, multidisciplinary enterprise: macroeconomists, engineers, environmental scientists, sovereign wealth specialists, procurement auditors, and citizens’ oversight – working transparently, with ring-fenced rules that outlive administrations.

Mr James has opened the door. We must now walk through it with discipline. The portents beneath our seas must be handled not as a political trophy, but as a national trust – prudently sequenced, transparently governed, and deliberately insulated from the very distortions that have undone others.

DENNIS MINOTT

Port Antonio, Jamaica