That Budget cannot cross it

Lambert Brown, Contributor

This is in stark contrast to a radio advertisement by a group affiliated with the governing political party, proclaiming through the voice of the prime minister, that the worst has passed.

Last Thursday, confirmation of further misery to come was contained in a newspaper headline declaring "Cabinet contemplates cuts". On that day I got a telephone call from an elderly man requesting some assistance because he was diabetic and had not eaten since Tuesday. I have no doubt that there are many more like him throughout Jamaica suffering the pangs of hunger. In his Thursday column elsewhere, Mark Wignall told the story of a young man walking up to him begging "a money fi buy some food. Mi nuh eat from mawning".

It is this reality that is facing the hundreds of thousands who are out of a job today and have fallen further below the poverty line. Many are asking whether this reality is understood by our government and private-sector leaders.

Insensitive comment

Cutting the Budget further is bound to worsen the lot of those already below the poverty line as well as many others who today are in a job but may be cut soon from their economic lifeline. This is why I am incensed by the comments of the president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), Mr Joseph M. Matalon, who appears to be dismissing the concerns of those who are worried about the impending IMF reviews of two of the last three quarters.

The fact that no money is flowing from the IMF and the multilateral agencies is one of the reasons for additional budget cuts. Mr Matalon is reported as saying: "The issue of whether we pass the December or March test is history. It is neither here nor there."

Joe Matalon may not have meant it in the uncaring way it came across to some people. In my opinion, it was a most insensitive comment. Perception is a hell of a thing. Oftentimes it is not what is said, but how it comes across to the audience that matters.

I recall last year May, in the midst of the security forces' operations in west Kingston, comments came from the head of the PSOJ, which also offended some people. Class warfare may not be the intended object, but insensitivity, as experience has shown here, and elsewhere, can create more damage than good.

The head of the PSOJ is entitled to give his support to policies he believes are best for the members of his organisation. I support that right of his and others so to do. I will fight to support and maintain that right. That is what democracy is about. Equally, I think it is the right of others to critically comment on whether that support is in the best interests of the nation as a whole.

Just three months ago, the PSOJ and others came out in full support of the Government's Budget delivered by Minister Shaw and the prime minister. It was a game-changer, we were told. Ian Boyne, in his column of May 8, summed up well the PSOJ position. He wrote then: "The PSOJ continues to be encouraged by exchange-rate stability, historically low interest rates, large reductions in interest costs, the Government of Jamaica's ability to achieve its fiscal target," the PSOJ said in a release hailing the Government's "hard-fought-for stability".

So when Portia Simpson Miller and Omar Davies questioned, "What stability and at what price?" they are on their own as far as the moneyed classes are concerned. The PSOJ is happy that many of the reforms announced by Shaw are "consistent with proposals advocated by the PSOJ and other private-sector associations". That the Government consulted with them and took their views into consideration before crafting the Budget makes them even more appreciative. So the PSOJ was happy then, and as The Gleaner headlined on Thursday, "Matalon backs Audley Shaw". The question is, who is backing the suffering masses of our people?

Only a mere three months ago, Mrs Simpson Miller and Mr Davies, speaking for the Opposition, said the Budget was not credible. They spoke on behalf of the workers, farmers, small-business people and even some big businesses. They were laughed at. Minister Shaw denounced the opposition leader for raising the expectations of public-sector workers in getting the outstanding $30 billion owed by the Government to them. "She knew it could not be paid," he was reported as saying.

Fantasy Budget

Today, the Government has to bow, eat humble pie, and has to find the money to honour a sacrosanct agreement on which they had previously tried to unilaterally default. Political and economic events seem to have proven Mrs Simpson Miller and her team correct in their assessment of the April Budget as being fantasy, not reality. The harsh reality is now hitting the masses of the Jamaican people despite the deafening cheers of the leadership of the PSOJ.

Three months ago, at Budget time, Boyne wrote the following in an article titled "PNP slips with re-election budget": "Journalists Cliff Hughes and George Davis wondered aloud after Finance Minister Audley Shaw's Budget presentation how Omar Davies could recover from the politically devastating, feel-good Budget that had been delivered. 'He will start from zero,' Davis opined. He did, and did not recover from Shaw's much-applauded, private-sector-endorsed Budget.

"'For a long time, I have not seen a finance minister receive so much praise for a Budget presentation,' Cliff Hughes, the country's sharpest and most politically astute newsman, said. It was a rough pitch that was set for Omar Davies. And even for a fine batsman like him, there was not much he could do with that pitch and so deafening a crowd support for the opponents - especially from the grandstand where the Big Boys sip Johnnie Walker Black."

Today, our country faces a serious economic crisis. The fantasy has been exposed. An early supplementary budget is to replace the much applauded Budget. Now we know it was not credible in the first place. The truth is, the Budget could not swim, it 'canna cross it', and the people are hungry.

Lambert Brown is president of the University and Allied Workers' Union. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and Labpoyh@yahoo.com.