It's a short distance between Palm Sunday and Good Friday, but it feels like nothing is happening, and not even the superfluity of ministerial audits, necessary though they are in exposing corruption, seem to be working to correct the "auto-pilot" feeling. Years ago, Prime Minister Simpson Miller declared her preference to work more and talk less. Her reasoning was that politicians spend too much time talking and too little working, and in the end very little is accomplished. I still agree with her assessment, even as I hope that her "action, not a bag 'o mout" declaration was sincere.

However, effective leadership, especially during times of national crises and challenges, requires a blend of talk and action. Talk, in this sense, becomes essential because the leader must not only act as he or she deems appropriate, but must also communicate to the citizens the construct and enormity of the challenges that lie ahead, while simultaneously articulate a vision of how these challenges will be tackled and the blend of ameliorative actions that will be implemented to fix them. By now, one would have expected the prime minister, as the commander-in-chief, to be using the bullet pulpit to talk to the country about the current state of affairs and to be laying out a blueprint of where her administration intends to take the country at least in the near term, and not be delegating this task to her second-tier generals.

Before anyone accuses me of impatience, let me make it absolutely clear that I am never one to "drink the kool-aid", although I believe that the role of an Opposition is to stand ready as the "government-in-waiting". As such, its primary role and responsibility, while in Opposition, ought to be to study the problems that exist, criticise government actions, but also to formulate viable and implementable, short- to medium- and even long-term policies upon becoming the government. My expectations of the People's National Party as Opposition were no less.Yes, it has been just a little over seven weeks since the Portia Simpson Miller-led government was sworn in and reasonable people do not expect that the new government would have been able to relocate the beautiful and protective Blue Mountains to the inviting and vulnerable prairie of the Pedro Plains.

In fact, it would have been gravely irrational and stupidly reckless for people to expect that the new administration would have delivered on all the promises it made in the lead-up to the December 29, 2011 general election in the seven weeks since it has formed the government. There are some among us who, out of sheer political malevolence and false piety, are behaving as though the economic and social problems we currently face all surfaced on the morning after the general election. For them, the antidote should have already kicked in and start producing noticeable results-oh so silly-because up to a grain of corn must germinate before it pops up and begins to bear fruits.

Yet, in fairness to the unreasonably inclined, with their hampers full of misplaced expectations, the PNP, in its quest to win, might have unwittingly underestimated the obdurate systemic and systematic nature of the socio-economic problems that it contributed to during the 1990s when it formed the government. Consequently, there can be no quarrel with those who were so influenced by the PNP's election message that they genuinely believed that Jamaica's liberation and economic success rests squarely in the eradication of the "uncaring and wicked" Jamaica Labour Party government, as Mrs Simpson Miller repeatedly said. Well, the chickens have come home to roost and the government must govern and govern effectively. There are people with legitimate grouses and whose personal economies do not allow them time to watch the grass grow even as the horses starve, for them, relief cannot come soon enough.

And without attempting to re-litigate the past, there are tremendous beneficial lessons to be learned from slanting the descriptive just to avoid addressing the certainty and potency of the prescriptive. For as it now stands, and it is made manifestly clear by the day, the former JLP government did not manage the country's affairs as efficiently or competently as it claimed; but a strident and proactive Opposition should have detected the kinks, designed solutions, and should, more likely than not, have been able to hit the ground running. The government still has enormous political capital to expend, and it has time and space on its side to "trim up its lamp", steady the ship, and set sail. It must speak plainly and honestly about the economic conditions and what it inherited without appearing accusatory.

Evidently, it cannot fix all the problems at the same time; but it should select four or five pressing maladies on which to focus its attention, even as senior technocrats and advisers devise medium- to long-term solutions. One suspects the JEEP would have been the vehicle to transport some short-term programmes designed to stimulate job creation, increase aggregate demand and boost economic activities, and that it would have been rolled out by now. Obviously, a brilliant concept, though pretty much embryonic, JEEP's funding and logistics are yet to be ironed out.

The $1.62-trillion national debt remains an albatross around the country's neck. Government revenues are in retreat, now running several billions behind projections, as unemployment remains high. In the short term, the prime minister must begin to lead from the front. She, more than anyone else, has the people's ears and hearts; she must use her position to keep them in the loop, to talk with them, to bring the message of hope, and to win their collective trust and support for the tough options that the government will have to undertake to steady the ship of state. The abundance of political goodwill notwithstanding, timing is everything, and the longer the government takes to act the less capital it will have at its disposal. We do not intend for the government to start tripping over itself, but the people want to see something happen.

Burnscg@aol.com

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