Imagine a Jamaica without charity

We are completely in agreement with the notion of the Government doing all it can to encourage charitable giving, including the provision of tax incentives above what it now offers.

It is impossible to quantify the full value of the countless acts of charity, without which we cannot imagine the degree of suffering that our people, especially the poorest Jamaicans, would be experiencing, nor how far behind we would be in national development of our country.

For that reason, we embrace Tuesday’s call by some of Jamaica’s leading supporters of charity for changes to the country’s tax laws that would boost the amount of money that corporations now give to philanthropic causes.

By credible estimates, over the past 10 years, eight of the island’s most generous corporate givers — who have now been nominated for this year’s Jamaica Observer Business Leaders Award — have cumulatively contributed more than $7 billion to various charities.

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This $7 billion surely is nothing to scoff at, given that it relates only to eight companies. Yet we believe that it is a mere drop in the bucket when one factors in the innumerable acts of daily charitable giving by the private sector as a whole and the thousands of Jamaicans from whom flows the milk of human kindness.

From simple acts of giving, Jamaicans have constructed impressive entities to receive and distribute resources to a wide array of organisations and individuals whose very survival is at any moment in danger.

An army of Jamaicans organised in groups calling themselves service clubs devote lifetimes to helping the poor and unfortunate. Scores of their members take time to visit shut-ins, prisoners, state homes for children, or to sing carols at Christmas to bedridden patients in hospitals.

Schools have come to depend heavily on their past students for things ranging from even basic items to modern computers and science laboratories. Churches, longest in the game of giving, bring in numerous groups of doctors in a variety of fields, as well as medical supplies for health fairs that benefit thousands.

And even at that, we still have not yet talked about the relatives who, taking the term “charity begins at home” literally, share their worldly goods with impoverished family members, some of them sending home billions of dollars yearly in remittances from abroad.

We are aware that the Government is doing a fair bit in tough economic times to assist these charitable endeavours. Yet we sense that more can be done in the nature of the suggestion by Mr Earl Jarrett, the general manager of the Jamaica National Building Society (JNBS), that the State should allow family and corporate foundations to direct contributions to their favourite causes while receiving a total write-off for this expenditure.

Another useful suggestion came from Mrs Patricia Duncan Sutherland, chairman of the Joan Duncan Foundation, who felt the Government could allow big charitable givers to work collectively to identify a consequential national need and fill the gap, thus relieving the State of that obligation.

The eight corporations nominated for this year’s Business Leader Award are JNBS, Digicel Jamaica, Heineken, JMMB, National Baking Company, NCB Group, Sagicor Group, and Scotiabank Group.

They are already all winners. Ask any homeless or indigent Jamaican.
JAMAICA OBSERVER

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hi mapoui

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