Revamp education with an IMF loan - Seaga
Published:Friday | April 8, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Gary Spaulding, Senior Gleaner Writer
Former Prime Minister Edward Seaga is proposing that the Jamaican Government approach the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan arrangement to finance a comprehensive education-revamping programme.
An unrelenting advocate of an early education thrust, Seaga argued during a Gleaner Editors' Forum yesterday that such an approach should be advanced as soon as the Government concludes its US$1.2-billion standby arrangement with the IMF.
"They (the IMF) want something that will demonstrate to them that it can lift Jamaica out of its predicament and to me that is education, nothing else can do that," declared Seaga during the forum held at the newspaper's North Street, central Kingston, offices.
"You really want the IMF to say I want a programme on the fundamentals of education," stressed Seaga.
The former parliamentarian confidently suggested that he has more than passing knowledge that the IMF would embrace such a proposal.
"I would go as far as to say, in my background knowledge of the IMF and my friendship with one of the board members, that the IMF would be willing to continue a programme with us," asserted Seaga.
balance the Budget
The former prime minister noted that the IMF allocation of US$1.2 billion was used to balance the Budget.
"When that allocation is completely used up and we don't have IMF funds to balance the two budgets - fiscal and external - where are you?" queried Seaga rhetorically.
"You are back to where you were before the IMF came along - with huge deficits and unable to do anything," he argued.
It was Seaga, in his capacity as opposition leader, who wooed parliamentarians on both sides of the parliamentary chamber with a motion he initiated in 2003 to transform the education system.
Now retired from representational politics, Seaga continues to advocate for changes to a system that stakeholders agree has yielded too many failures.
Seaga, recently appointed chancellor of the University of Technology, lamented that Jamaica has failed to make use of the period of the standby arrangements with the IMF to think about how it proposes to forge ahead.
"We have not used the period to think of the new areas that we have to penetrate in order to be able to move forward when that subsidy is gone," he said.
The man who served as finance minister between 1967 and 1972 and 1980 to 1989 stressed that the IMF desired a programme that could remove Jamaica from its list.
"They don't want a programme of filling out your financial gaps every year," he declared.
Seaga argued that there were only two areas in Jamaica from which economic growth could take place - manufacturing and tourism.
"Manufacturing is in a serious problem because of the cost and the hotels have used up practically all of the good lands; mining likewise," said Seaga, who suggested only agriculture and human resources remained.
"Human resources is the one that has the greatest number of persons who can be trained and used to get growth going than any other area, so it eliminates all the others and selects itself," he argued.