Delroy Chuck
DURING THE past 12 years, the Jamaican economy has not performed well. Dr. Omar Davies has invariably missed his macro-economic targets. No doubt, he will argue that, but for him, the economy would have been worse, which is usually the argument of failures that when things go wrong it could have been worse. Judged by his annual predictions, which are totally within his discretion, he has failed consistently.
Consider his annual growth targets of 2.5-4 per cent of GDP he has not achieved one. Throughout his tenure, the economy has not averaged even one per cent growth. Since 1994 we have in fact grown cumulatively by six per cent, when we were promised under the National Industrial Plan annual growth of six per cent. Even when Dr. Davies predicts 2.5 per cent growth, as he did for 2004/5, he barely achieved one per cent.
What this means is quite simply, the economy has not performed, expanded or responded to the needs of a growing population. In the same period, inflation averaged in excess of 12 per cent, which indicates that the poor and vulnerable are being savaged and denied by this hidden taxation and the failure of the economy to grow.
NO REAL GROWTH
When we speak of prosperity, only significant growth can achieve it. In reality, when an economy grows by less than three per cent, and inflation is in double digits, there is basically no real growth, as the anaemic growth can easily be explained by the inflation in the system. Moreover, even if there is growth, it is occurring in areas such as tourism, the financial sector and construction, which bring no direct benefits to the vast majority of Jamaicans.
Over the past two years, Dr. Davies predicted inflation of nine per cent annually, when the actual out-turn was 16 per cent and 13.2 per cent for fiscal years 2003/4 and 2004/5 respectively.
That means inflation would have eroded the purchasing power of most Jamaicans by almost 30 per cent, even while their salary increases have been kept to single digits. His prediction of nine per cent inflation for 2005/6 becomes doubtful and impossible in light of the massive tax package imposed.
Only a cruel and wicked administration, devoted to the tax and spend philosophy, committed to the distribution of wealth instead of its creation, and with very little concern for the least vulnerable in our country could have followed up a $14 billion tax package of 2003/4 with another one of 9.2-billion in fiscal year 2005/6. The impact on the unemployed, the pensioners, the parents of school children, etc., will be devastating. How many remember when GCT was introduced, it was meant to be revenue neutral, but is now being used as a major source of revenue for a failed, inept and broke administration.
The one area in which Dr. Davies can gloat is in the unusual and unexpected build-up of the NIR, which has outperformed the target by more than 50 per cent last year, which says very little for Dr. Davies' predictions. Yet, the build-up can easily be explained by the huge amount of remittances, in excess of US$8 billion over the past 10 years, coming to the country, for one reason or another. No doubt, the interest rate on U.S. dollars at six to eight per cent is attractive, as rates overseas are less than three per cent. Imagine, however, after the vast amounts from remittances, grants and loans, the Jamaican economy still stagnates and barely sputtering.
Dr. Davies' singular achievement, for which he will long be remembered, is the massive escalation of the country's debt that in US$ measurement has more than doubled and moved from under Ja$30 billion to in excess of Ja$760 billion, with debt to GDP exceeding 135 per cent.
It is only a failed administration therefore that can boast of NIR of US$2 billion without acknowledging that the country's indebtedness has increased by more than US$7 billion, which indicates that the country is probably US$5 billion worse off during Dr. Davies' tenure. Under his watch, the country is swirling in the vortex of a debt trap.
'BANGARANG' FOISTED
Most telling, Dr. Davies' economic policies have foisted a perennial 'bangarang' on the poor, the inner cities and the rural communities. No wonder the embedded PNP activists, supporters and sympathisers in the media, some masquerading as independent and serious commentators, hate the term 'bangarang', when to my sure knowledge, the word, emerging from the belly of rural life, means nothing more than a whole heap of turmoil, disagreements and disorder, which is exactly what a failed government has inflicted on the weak and powerless.
Delroy Chuck is an attorney-at-law and Opposition Member of Parliament. He can be contacted by email at delchuck@hotmail.com.
