Poverty levels worry Opposition

Dr Omar Davies, the opposition spokesman on finance, has called on the Government to explain the non-publication of the annual Survey of Living Conditions.

"The non-publication of the Survey of Living Conditions implies, at the same time, not only our inability to have a structured discussion on the matter, but also raises questions as to whether the Government itself is thinking about the issues," he said.

Davies chided Finance Minister Audley Shaw for failing to mention the country's rising poverty levels when he opened the Budget Debate last Thursday.

"That this did not deserve a sentence in the minister's presentation is indeed instructive," he said.

Davies noted that it was not the first time that the Survey of Living Conditions had not been published on time.

"It should be recalled that it was only after I posed questions in this Honourable House that the prime minister produced the document on the Survey of Living Conditions for 2008, and summary information on the Survey of Living Conditions for 2009. I do not know if the actual Survey of Living Conditions document for 2009 has been published. I have not seen it," Davies said.

According to him, the information was provided in the case of the 2008 data nearly 18 months after the time it should have been available.

"The data, when provided, confirmed what everyone at all levels realised. It indicated that the level of poverty, which had dropped to 9.6 per cent in 2007, had jumped first to 12.2 per cent in 2008 and then to 16.5 per cent in 2009. Simply translated, it meant that from a ratio of one in 10 being below the poverty line, in two years, this had deteriorated to one in six below the poverty line," Davies said.

He pointed to the Planning Institute of Jamaica, which in a publication placed current poverty levels at between 18 per cent and 20 per cent.