Trust deficit: Gov't, IMF and Haiti

Orville Taylor, Contributor

According to Jeremiah 17:15, "Cursed is the man who trusts in man ... ."

Call me Thomas if you wish, but on this Easter Sunday, what is being resurrected for me is a deep distrust for those who are elected and appointed to govern us.

Despite being full of 'knowledge' based on blind faith that Jesus is coming again as a thief in the night, I am worried that he might arrive before the agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is reached. After all, there have been many announcements which lulled us into a false sense of hope.

Like all patriotic Jamaicans, I want to believe in Dr Peter Phillips, and I would even hand over the 30 pieces of silver that I have discovered lying around somewhere in someone's clenched fist, because the Budget needs every cent it can find to make it balance.

Although there might not be any major new taxes, it is Easter, and like Jesus, the Government must get what is 'Jew' to it.

Nevertheless, there is justified fear and a basis for nervousness because the People's National Party (PNP) Government is beginning to remind me a bit too much of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) when it was in power.

The Labourites chatted a lot and delivered little. Finance minister under the JLP, Audley Shaw, had told the nation that we would only have been slightly affected by the 2008 global crisis. Then, when 'story come to bump', we heard that the IMF was a different organisation from what it was in the wicked 1970s and 1980s as we suffered under its dictates.

We have Been There Before

Those of us who were graduate students at the University of the West Indies in the last 1980s when Phillips was a lecturer there were never fooled; an 'I' at the beginning, an 'M' in the middle and however they juggled, we got 'F' at the end.

So, bring on the devaluation, wage freeze, reduction of worker benefits, pension depreciation, chopping of the public sector, widening of the gap between rich and poor. We have been there before; let's brace for it. However, one can't help but sweat like Jesus in the garden, and beg, "Lord, if it is your will, take this cup from us."

I'm not sure who might go out and hang himself, although suicides tend to follow sudden changes in people's economic statuses. However, the PNP is in the grips of the IMF, although in early 2012, it did say, that we did not have a balance of payment problem, thus, it was not likely that we would have been borrowing money from the IMF. Rather, instead of resurrecting the failed deal which was made by the JLP, a new arrangement would be negotiated with the Fund.

CONFIDENCE PETERS OUT

Later, assurances came in August: "We will have, what I expect to be, concluded negotiations by the 25th of September when the IMF team comes here. So there is no delay in the programme discussions." Indeed, Phillips asserted, "The team is coming September and I expect to go to the board before the end of the calendar year." Well, unless, there are 15 months in a year, something is awry and clearly, it is either a case of the PNP, like the JLP before, underestimating the magnitude of its challenge, or it was deceptive.

Up to a few weeks ago, it looked as if necks were being stuck out that an agreement would have been signed by year end. However, just a week ago, former prime minister Bruce Golding, a man who knows from his vast experience when politicians are lying, took the stick to the PNP and said that he knew that Jamaica's proposed agreement was not on the IMF's agenda. Therefore, for all the promises, timelines and deadlines, the PNP had misled us into thinking that we would have had the eucalyptus oil or castor oil, which was the bitter medicine we have been hearing of since 2011.

Cabinet went into retreat, but there was no surrender, because straight answers were not forthcoming. Instead, the finance minister chose to treat the reporters as if they were graduate students and he was back at UWI. Amid all the trepidation which the country feels, only one guarantee seemed to come from the mouth of the sage from Gordon House - that there would be no major tax changes. Of course, I have full confidence in a man who has never broken a promise or done anything that surprised or wrong-footed the nation.

When a man who tips the scale way past 200 pounds tells you that one needs not to brace for new taxes, one has to take it with a shovel of salt, because the little movement that he might feel as a vibration could very well be an earthquake to others.

FOCUS ON HAITI

Nevertheless, as the Cabinet retreated, Haitians were once again on our shores. True, we have our own problems and our own poor, as well as persons who live in terror of state agents. After all, we have seen poverty increase, police killings shoot up to about one per day, and opportunities are not forthcoming. However, some Haitians think that it is better to come here than to remain in their country.

Yet, despite the guarantees of the Jamaican Government, there is reason to believe that the situation related to the neighbours to the northeast is not being handled properly. More on this issue will be forthcoming. However, it could be inferred that the Government is not truthful with regard to its compliance with its international treaties. My own suspicions came after speaking with the Haitians who, in spite of previous promised access, were blocked from my attempts to communicate with them for almost two hours.

Mayor of Port Antonio Benny White, having been made aware of some of the reasons for their fugue from their country, has spoken publicly. I take this opportunity to warn the Government publicly, as I did privately, that it is dropping the ball.

More anon, but let us see if the agreement will be signed before the next boatload comes.

Dr Orville Taylor is senior lecturer in sociology at the UWI and a radio talk-show host. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.