Matalon backs Audley Shaw
Published:Thursday | August 11, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
JOSEPH MATALON, president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ), has disagreed with Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller on the ineffectiveness of Finance Minister Audley Shaw's address to the nation on Sunday.
Simpson Miller on Tuesday charged that Shaw did not answer the critical questions that needed to be addressed on the matter of Jamaica's performance with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
"If the minister had intended to clarify the situation on the public's behalf, he has failed to do so, and has made the uncertainty even worse," the opposition leader said in a release.
She charged that 'broad statements and empty catch phrases do not deliver the level of certainty or clarity of information upon which markets depend for confidence."
But Matalon, who heads the powerful private-sector group, said Shaw's address has shone greater light on the country's economic situation.
"The minister's statement did provide a level of clarity, a greater level of clarity than existed in the public domain prior to his statement. I don't think it is going to make for any more uncertainty than existed prior, and it certainly does clarify a number of issues," Matalon told The Gleaner.
Shaw on Sunday spoke to the issue of Jamaica's economic performance with the IMF, amid claims that the country failed two consecutive quarterly tests administered by the multilateral agency.
He told the nation that Jamaica was not assessed in December 2010 and March 2011, as the IMF had difficulty with the country's medium term economic plan. Two issues to which he said the IMF pointed were the need to divest the Clarendon Alumina Partners and for Jamaica to reduce its wage bill as a percentage of GDP to nine per cent by 2016.
Shaw also said aside from missing the primary surplus target in March, the country achieved the other quantitative targets. Matalon said he was "quite relieved".
"The issue of whether we passed the December or March test is history. It is neither here nor there. What is of greater concern to us is that the minister spoke of an action plan to address many of the issues that are likely to impact, in particular on the medium-term economic programme.
"The truth is that the headwinds that we face are only going to be more difficult to weather, if, in fact, there is a double-dip recession in the United States, and I think that strategically, we need to be looking at what are the mitigating strategies, what are the measures that can be put in place to counteract any such fallout," Matalon said.