EDITORIAL - Going for growth and jobs

Perhaps the most refreshing and pertinent of Prime Minister Bruce Golding's observations in his New Year's message was of the need for his Government to focus on "stimulating growth and creating jobs".

According to the prime minister, the administration will be helped in formulating policies to achieve these by Professor Donald Harris, the Jamaican who teaches economics at Stanford University.

Professor Harris, it is to be recalled, played a not-insignificant role in shaping the industrial policy commissioned by the previous administration in the late 1990s, the aim of which was to free the economy from its long-term underperformance and generate growth of around six per cent per annum.

Professor Harris, we assume, will be chagrined that his efforts were largely futile. A distaste for hard decisions meant that the policy remained largely unimplemented.

The upshot: the Jamaican economy remained in the doldrums, while others grew.

Confronting the crisis

Prime Minister Golding will argue, not without validity, that he was not in office during the global economy's boom period, and that his tenure has largely coincided with the world recession.

It is equally true that the Government has, for the most part, shown neither alacrity, creativity nor aggression in confronting the crisis. It has been either passive or reactive to the events, which it too often misread.

For example, the administration mistook the onset of the financial crisis as a blip, which ministers, fantastically, argued would hardly affect Jamaica. By failing to grasp the depth of the crisis, the Government was late in formulating a response, including negotiating a credit agreement with the International Monetary Fund.

While the administration can claim success in rescheduling its domestic debt, saving more than $40 billion in debt-servicing cost in the current fiscal year, that came when its back was clearly against the wall.

The administration, unfortunately, cannot reverse circumstances and regain squandered opportunities. It can, though, learn from its mistakes. That, we hope, is what was signalled by Prime Minister Golding in that New Year's message.

If that is indeed the case, this newspaper expects more than passive declarations that mistake statements for action.

Efficient tax system

In that regard, we look forward, for instance, to reforms that make the tax system more efficient and conducive to the private-sector investment and job creation Mr Golding hopes to induce.

We anticipate, too, action on the public-sector transformation programme, about which Mr Golding and others have chatted with great eloquence, but with little discernible action. As matters now stand, the cost of the public bureaucracy will be same in the next Budget cycle as in the one now ending.

Nor has much happened in removing red tape or other hindrances to investment and/or other economic transactions that inhibit growth.

Most of these are not the kinds of initiatives that demand the expertise of Professor Harris. They require, instead, political will and courage, and national buy-in.

Part of Mr Golding's job, in this case, must be to change the discourse to create a national conversation around economic growth and job creation. But the Government must not only drive consensus, it must be implemented efficiently.

Maybe now Mr Golding can become the 'Driver' he had hoped to be, or mobiliser-in-chief.

The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published.