I write as a re­tired pro­fes­sion­al, rea­son­ably ac­quaint­ed with the fol­low­ing mat­ters, and great­ly con­cerned about a num­ber of them. Over the past week, there has been yet an­oth­er out­break of "gas pains" in Ja­maica, ap­par­ent­ly caused by the T&T brand of the prod­uct. The symp­toms are writhing ful­mi­na­tions from some "pa­tients," es­pe­cial­ly in the Ja­maican me­dia. Four times in the space of sev­en days, the Ja­maica Glean­er news­pa­per has used its ed­i­to­r­i­al col­umn to gripe about re­marks made by T&T's Prime Min­is­ter Man­ning at his re­cent par­ty con­ven­tion.

Mr Man­ning had sim­ply an­nounced that this coun­try "con­fi­dent­ly an­tic­i­pates" en­ter­ing in­to a guar­an­teed arrange­ment with Ja­maica for the sup­ply of alu­mi­na to the pro­posed alu­mini­um smelter in La Brea, in ex­change for Trinidad's LNG. The air had scarce­ly left his lips in Ch­aguara­mas when folks in Kingston be­gan ex­pe­ri­enc­ing stom­ach tur­bu­lence, fol­lowed by out­bursts of hot air. In a nut­shell, a few crazy peo­ple are again as­sert­ing that Ja­maica has a "right" to pur­chase Trinidad's LNG at the same price that con­sumers in Trinidad pay, plus the cost of liq­ue­fac­tion and trans­port. Some are even ramp­ing up the in­san­i­ty by threat­en­ing to take the mat­ter to the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice!

Giv­en such dys­pep­sia, a deep breath is need­ed as we probe the pa­tient's in­ter­nal sys­tems to find out what's re­al­ly caus­ing this di­ges­tive dis­tur­bance. What we know of this sit­u­a­tion has been ef­fi­cient­ly fer­ret­ed out in an ex­cel­lent piece of jour­nal­ism by the Guardian's act­ing ed­i­tor-in-chief, An­tho­ny Wil­son, de­serv­ing of a Pulitzer Prize (Busi­ness Guardian col­umn, Ju­ly 2). So solid­ly done, it lends it­self to my para­phras­ing with­out pla­gia­riz­ing: Ja­maica wants T&T's nat­ur­al gas at a cheap price so as to low­er the cost of pro­duc­tion at Ja­maica's alu­mi­na re­finer­ies. That's be­cause three of Ja­maica's four alu­mi­na re­finer­ies have stopped pro­duc­tion–thanks to an over-sup­ply of alu­mi­na on the world mar­ket. The cost of pro­duc­tion at these re­finer­ies is un­com­pet­i­tive be­cause fu­el for their tur­bines is im­port­ed at a painful price.�

Clo­sure of those re­finer­ies means los­ing 66 per cent of the is­land's for­eign ex­change earn­ings from alu­mi­na. This com­mod­i­ty con­tributed US$1.2 bil­lion to Ja­maica in 2008–an es­ti­mat­ed 44 per cent of the US$2.7 bil­lion of all ex­port earn­ings. Ja­maica there­fore stands to lose a whop­ping US$792 mil­lion from the is­land's for­eign ex­change earn­ings in 2009.�That will cause un­told dam­age to the Ja­maica econ­o­my–weak­en­ing the cur­ren­cy (J$89 to US$1), shoot­ing up in­fla­tion from 22 per cent, in­creas­ing in­ter­est rates, push­ing up un­em­ploy­ment, and trig­ger­ing cap­i­tal flight. Back­ground sound-ef­fects to this hor­ror movie is gun­fire. Cut­away from such dis­as­ter scenes to a shot of Prime Min­is­ter Gold­ing queu­ing up at the IMF loan-win­dow to bor­row US$1.2 bil­lion on a three-year stand­by agree­ment.

Such night­mar­ish pic­tures must have been swirling in Mr Man­ning's head when he spoke at the PNM con­ven­tion. He de­scribed the sup­ply of LNG to Ja­maica as be­ing a "na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty," and warned if we don't help our neigh­bours we will suf­fer–"blood will flow." Trinida­di­ans and To­bag­o­ni­ans im­me­di- ate­ly sat up, and in con­cert with Mr Man­ning, our hearts went out to our Caribbean cousins. But like, I am sure, our Ja­maican fam­i­ly, T&T cit­i­zens are not just 'eart with­out 'ead, emo­tion with­out ex­am­i­na­tion, dol­lars with­out sense. We must agree with Mr Man­ning's prag­ma­tism of "en­light­ened self-in­ter­est." It opts for a ju­di­cious mix of aid and trade, it ad­mits to the phi­los­o­phy of benef­i­cence cou­pled to the prin­ci­ples of busi­ness, it is based on help­ful neigh­bourli­ness but with re­spect for the Ja­maican peo­ple to not have their dig­ni­ty ig­nored sim­ply be­cause they face des­per­ate times. And, most of all, it be­speaks fair­ness. All par­ties must push back from the ta­ble with their de­cen­cy in­tact with no ques­tion of one-up­man­ship by any par­tic­i­pant.

Now, while we may choose to be­lieve that Mr Man­ning has more in­for­ma­tion and strate­gies in his fa­mous back­pock­et than we do, the tax­pay­ers/vot­ers of this coun­try have right and rea­son to look at this mat­ter from all sides, and to ta­ble ap­pro­pri­ate sug­ges­tions for ac­tion. You see, this mat­ter will hit the pock­ets of man-in-the-street Trinida­di­ans/To­bag­o­ni­ans big time, and we are en­ti­tled to have a say. For in­stance, T&T cit­i­zens would think it a win-win out­come if a spe­cial price for our LNG were to be ne­go­ti­at­ed, but si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly if Trinidad were to buy the Ja­maica Gov­ern­ment's share in the Ja­mal­co alu­mi­na re­fin­ery. Prime Min­is­ter Gold­ing is on record as say­ing it may be for sale, and for­mer Cab­i­net mem­ber Claude Clarke es­ti­mat­ed its worth to be "less than US$50 mil­lion." Mr Man­ning may buy that 45 per cent gov­ern­ment stake so as to im­port alu­mi­na to process at the smelter plant in Trinidad. And there are many oth­er trans­ac­tions our two coun­tries can con­sid­er.

What re­mains puz­zling is the hypochon­drac­u­la out­break turn­ing up in the Glean­er. Where is it com­ing from? An over-strate­gis­ing Gov­ern­ment, pri­or to George­town? A para­noid busi­ness sec­tor, still smart­ing from the "Plight of the Pat­ties?" A mis­chief-mak­ing me­dia, huff­ing and puff­ing in­side the ring with no op­po­nents in­ter­est­ed, but hop­ing to perk up sales? Or is it meant to be sound and fury to dis­tract us from notic­ing that 83 per cent of Ja­maica's alu­mi­na sec­tor is owned by non-Ja­maicans–Russ­ian, Amer­i­can and Nor­we­gian in­ter­ests? We would in ef­fect be sell­ing our LNG at a cut price to non-Ja­maicans who would be smirk­ing in the shad­ows know­ing they can well af­ford the open-mar­ket price, but hap­py to cream a prof­it from na�ve Trinida­di­ans/ To­bag­o­ni­ans. Which Ja­maican would al­low him­self to be so duped? Since when any Cari­com Treaty could have in­tend­ed that the wealth of T&T is not to be used pri­mar­i­ly to build schools in To­ba­go or an on­col­o­gy cen­tre in San Fer­nan­do–in­stead of lin­ing the pock­ets of an over­ly re­source­ful Russ­ian? Sure­ly the Glean­er is not try­ing to fa­cil­i­tate the sell­ing of our sin­gu­lar or com­bined pat­ri­mo­ny for 30 rubles, ap­prox­i­mate­ly TT$6?!

Ja­maicans may be too smart for that, but they do have an in­ter­est­ing track record when it comes to T&T. Af­ter all, it was the oh so clever, sil­ver-tongued Michael Man­ley, ap­par­ent­ly con­vinced that his re­put­ed charis­ma in­clud­ed med­ical com­pe­ten­cy, who once glee­ful­ly di­ag­nosed that "mon­ey was pass­ing through Trinidad like a dose ah salts!" So launched this tra­di­tion of a pe­cu­liar set of Ja­maicans giv­ing lib­er­ty to their lips to com­ment on Trinidad's wealth and health. Nor­mal­ly, in our se­nior­i­ty, we would dis­miss all this as no more than an­oth­er Shab­ba Ranks, Bee­nie or Ele­phant Man per­for­mance–bare­ly in­tel­li­gi­ble lyrics, mo­not­o­nous stamp­ing of sol­dier-boot­ed feet, spas­tic move­ments of arms and neck to set dread­locks a-flail­ing, any pas­sion mere­ly smoke-in­duced–but four ed­i­to­ri­als in sev­en days?!

Who's writ­ing ed­i­to­ri­als for the Glean­er? Chris Gayle? Voop­ing may be pre­req­ui­site in the 20-overs game, but sure­ly the pride­ful ed­i­to­r­i­al col­umn of such a ven­er­a­ble medi­um de­serves the el­e­gance and pro­lifi­ca­cy of George Headley, Al­lan Rae and Lawrence Rowe com­bined. What would be the out­cry in Kingston if the Trinidad Guardian were to de­vote four ed­i­to­ri­als in sev­en days on the sub­ject of Ja­maica's many char­i­ty-be­gins-at-home xeno­pho­bic pos­tur­ings, whether in mat­ters of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, se­lec­tions for the West In­dies crick­et team (even the com­men­tary team!), or na­tion­al air­lines? The high­est lev­el of re­spect­ful jour­nal­is­tic dis­cern­ment tells us that four ed­i­to­ri­als in sev­en days in­di­cates that we are hear­ing the drum­beat of a psy­chot­i­cal­ly em­bat­tled mind, work­ing to an agen­da which de­serves very care­ful scruti­ny and watch­ful­ness.

The Glean­er's pot-bang­ing–a third world at­tempt at sabre-rat­tling–scares no one, and needs on­ly be met with adult pa­tience and sym­pa­thy. We note it to be fever-caused-by-des­per­a­tion when our Prime Min­is­ter's re­marks of gen­uine con­cern are ra­bid­ly mis­con­strued as "con­de­scend­ing," when things Gold­ing turn in­to brass­faced at­tempts to fix Trinidad's price for Trinidad, when those whose opin­ion no one should court ex­claim that this mat­ter should be tak­en to the Caribbean Court! For starters, we rec­om­mend that the T&T Gov­ern­ment set its LNG price, with ac­com­pa­ny­ing com­mer­cial terms and con­di­tions, and en­ter in­to nor­mal civ­il ne­go­ti­a­tions with the nor­mal civ­il rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Ja­maica. If the Glean­er and oth­er com­men­ta­tors find that hard to stom­ach, we pre­scribe a dose of so­da and An­gos­tu­ra Bit­ters be­fore bed tonight, and call us in the morn­ing. We know how to have gas, with­out the bad feel­ings.

Samuel George­son