Mike Henry, the transport and works minister, could not be accused, at least with credibility, of being a man lacking in ideas.

Which is good in these times in an administration that has so far failed to offer the country the kind of visionary leadership that builds people's confidence in the future. Indeed, in the 16 months that Prime Minister Golding's Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has been in office, there has been from them no big, bold concepts for the economy around which people can rally.

There is, for example, nothing like the proposal by Edward Seaga, when he was leader for the JLP and in opposition, for an integrated petro-chemical industry, built around the Government's Petrojam oil refinery. Nor has the Government offered anything similar to Mr Seaga's plan for an international free zone and tourism development on the island's south shore, embracing Kingston Harbour and the historic town of Port Royal.

Intermodal transport system

To be fair to Mr Henry, though, he has long, even before his return to government, talked about the development of an intermodal transport system in Jamaica and transforming the World War II American airbase at Vernamfield, Clarendon, into an aviation trans-shipment hub.

We do not sense that this is as yet official policy, but an idea to which Mr Henry is committed and to which the minister would like to sway his Cabinet colleagues. Mr Henry's intellectual and emotional investment in this idea will potentially weigh on how he approaches policy regarding this and/or related ventures. We have no evidence, however, that this will impair his objectivity.

One matter of competing interest, however, which is substantially in Mr Henry's ministerial remit is what to do with the Norman Manley International Airport at Palisadoes, which the Government has already spent several hundred million dollars to refurbish and upgrade. The expenditure continues.

The Manley airport is one of the Government's assets which has been considered for privatisation and, given the administration's current fiscal difficulties, ought to be among the enterprises divested with a level of urgency.

Private investors

Norman Manley, though, is not Jamaica's primary passenger airport. It handles only a fraction of the arrivals and departures of the Sangster airport in Montego Bay where most of the island's tourists land. Sangster is leased to private operators, who invested heavily in its upgrading.

Perhaps half the revenue at the Manley airport comes from its cargo handling business, which, given Mr Henry's preoccupation with using Vernamfield as a trans-shipment hub, would make private investors wary of bidding for Manley. This is a conflict in need of urgent resolution.

Mr Henry's wish to anchor such a facility in south central Jamaica as a catalyst for the development of that region of the island is laudatory. But given the already massive outlay on Norman Manley and the level of investment that the new project would require, the development of Vernamfield seems hardly feasible.

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