The following is an excerpt from the response of the Book Industry Association of Jamaica (BIAJ) on the imposition of general-consumption tax on general books (excluding academic and religious) presented by Kellie Magnus - member of the BIAJ Board on May 1, at the auditorium of the Kingston Book Shop.

The members of the Book Industry Association of Jamaica (BIAJ) fully appreciate the urgency of the financial crisis which has driven the Government to search for emergency measures to increase revenue. However, as concerned citizens, we feel compelled to advise the Government when decisions taken in the name of short-term fiscal urgency threaten to sacrifice our long-term development objectives.

The imposition of the general-consumption tax (GCT) on books will have serious implications for literacy, education and national development, which cannot be outweighed by the incremental tax revenue the measures will yield. To put it bluntly, what the Govern-ment will earn from this tax is a fraction of what it will cost the nation to undo the damage.

Six years ago, when the then government moved to impose GCT on books, the BIAJ rallied, as it is doing now, to highlight the potential risks of such a measure. Many of the arguments I will make today are the same as those my colleague, Dorothy Noel, made in May 2003. As a new member of the board of the BIAJ, I am grateful to be able to draw on my colleague's hard work and insight but saddened that we should have to make the same arguments again. If anything, the risk to national development is greater now than it was six years ago.

The rate of functional literacy is still too low; unemployment has risen, productivity has fallen; crime and violence have escalated exponentially. By any measure, we should be doing everything we can to support, not stymie, those sectors that strengthen the intellectual capacity of our citizens.

We, the members of the BIAJ are businesspeople - we are booksellers and publishers - and, of course, we are concerned about the impact to the bottom line. But our business is books. Our long-term health and sustainability depend on having a literate, intellectually curious population with the capacity to think and reason critically.

It is not coincidental that we consider ourselves partners in national development - those qualities that make a Jamaican a good customer for a bookseller or a publisher are the same qualities that make him or her a good citizen. Our opposition to the proposed tax on recreational books is, therefore, not just a matter of self-interest, but concern for the national good.

As it has been on the two previous occasions when it opposed GCT on books, the BIAJ's purpose is not to criticise the Government, but to remind it of the critical role that literacy plays in our development and the threat to these efforts that the proposed tax would pose.

There are three key concerns which we wish the Government to keep in mind:

1. A tax on books will lead to a decline in recreational reading, which has severe implications for literacy and, by extension, for national development.

2. Undermining recreational reading will undermine the literacy objectives of the Ministry of Education and the initiatives it is currently undertaking to promote reading and literacy. In an effort to raise money, we risk diluting the potential impact of money we're already spending.

3. The tax will pose severe challenges to the local publishing industry, a critical partner in educational development; and this has serious implications not just for Jamaican education but for the preservation of our national identity and heritage. The risks are particularly high in the fledgling children's book sector, where price considerations already thwart the development of the kind of rich local literary environment that a country of our creativity ought to be creating for its children.

Against these risks, we must weigh the negligible tax revenue which the Government stands to gain from recreational books and the question we must ask ourselves, is it worth the risk?

LITERACY AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Programmes manager for Creating Centres of Excellence, through Jamaica National Building Society and Victoria Mutual Building Society, Dr Grace Munroe, reads a book to Jahiem Hall at the official opening ceremony of The Source at Maverley Park earlier this year. Studies have shown that the more one reads, the better one becomes at reading. - File

The Government of Jamaica has long understood the link between literacy and national development and this government has on multiple occasions affirmed its commitment to using literacy as a driver for social and economic development. In his message for International Literacy Day 2008, the minister of education remarked that "the economic and social well-being of our nation depends on building a literate nation, able to read widely for practical purposes and for pleasure". He went on to add that "various studies have concluded that children exposed to a culture of reading model such behaviour and eventually become avid readers and highly intelligent individuals".

We cannot progress as a nation, and as citizens in a global community, if our population is not literate. But we are a long way from that. We congratulate ourselves that over 80 per cent of the population has attained basic literacy. But data from the PIOJ indicate that only 64 per cent of Jamaicans are functionally literate - that is, they have a clear understanding of the alphabetic system, they are able to read and understand a wide range of complex ideas, prose or documents, and they can write a short paragraph of connected sentences. Only 64 per cent of our population functions at or above a grade-six level. The rates are lower in rural parishes, and lower for men than women. And we are seeing the results of these low rates in other socio-economic indicators. Nearly 15 per cent of Jamaicans ages 15-19 - children of school leaving age - remain functionally illiterate. Of new admissions to adult correctional centres in 2008, nearly 80 per cent were illiterate. And while our survey data have yet to measure the rates of information and computer literacy which this globally competitive environment now requires, anecdotal evidence indicates that we have made great strides in the last decade, but we have not come far enough. Why would we risk moving backwards? To impose a tax on books and educational materials is to impose a tax on literacy, and to take a gamble on the kind of society we will create if Jamaicans read less than we already are.

RECREATIONAL READING

We believe that the Government understands all this. And we appreciate its ongoing commitment to maintaining the tax-exempt status for academic texts. What may be less clearly understood is the importance of recreational reading to literacy. Like any skill, reading is honed by practice. To paraphrase educator Nancy Prince-Cohen, learning to read is the bedrock of accomplishment, but practice is the polishing agent. The more one reads, the better a reader he or she becomes.

The Government's current plan to differentiate between educational and religious books on the one hand and "recreational" books on the other, discounts the value of the latter. And the notion that recreational reading is somehow less valuable than textbooks flies in the face of countless studies on education.