Wilberne Persaud, Financial Gleaner Columnist

Two previous columns considered strategic orientation on policy.

The next was meant to be a look at the financial services sector: what changes might preclude another Cash Plus, improve equity, security, efficiency, transparency and growth.

Events overtook that idea: the big story of the FINSAC commission of enquiry and various responses to the idea.

Finance Minister Shaw's presentation to Parliament: 'Development with Equity - the People at the Centre of Our Concern' described the proposed commission as an attempt to "specifically pinpoint the causes of the collapse and assist us as a country to set down rules to avoid such a catastrophe ever befalling Jamaica again".

This is a bold objective that history tells us no country has achieved. But we can be optimists too.

If such collapse can be avoided by a commission it would be an important development for the country. Perhaps even a less ambitious objective would suffice-merely finding causes.

Partisan political bickering

It does appear, however, that partisan political bickering would make such outcomes impossible.

The positions people take on the causes of the meltdown are too hardened. Special and individual interests including political positions are not separated from people's opinions on the matter.

So while a commission might seem a good idea the likelihood of its achieving significant objectives is questionable.

My own effort at explanation, Jamaica Meltdown - Indigenous Financial Sector Crash 1996, was published in 2006.

Excerpted and reviewed by Dr Alfred Sangster in the Financial Gleaner, it has been available since then both in Jamaica at the UWI Bookshop and at Amazon.com.

In the preface I wrote: "I somehow believe that in Jamaica, there is at least one question that will not be asked about this book: After almost 10 years has elapsed, why do we need a book about Jamaica's 1996 domestic financial sector crash?"

I felt that even if no one would ask the question. I should give the answer.

There were strong competing views about the cause or causes of the crash.

Hardly ever was reference made to "well-known events in other countries, where analyses of crises and their causes provide avenues for fruitful comparative review."

Finally, there seemed to be "skilful intermingling of arguments that subtly exploit the partisan political divide to which the Jamaican population appears particularly susceptible to suggestions of almost any kind, once appearing to emanate from sources close to the subject's position in the political divide, are met with favourable consideration.

The causes of the domestic financial sector crash thus take on unwarranted political undertones, having the effect of mystifying, rather than of clarifying, the process that led to the collapse. This kind of attitude needs to be countered. There is no better way to do that than by presenting the facts coupled with a reasoned interpretation of them."

Chronicling these events and their effects is important because generally, unique knowledge encompassing our prevailing political and societal processes go to the grave with its 'keeper'.

No access to history

The Jamaican people lose, or do not readily have access to important parts of their history.

I decided to tell the story "to share a point of view with as wide a readership of the Jamaican population as possible. I hoped my perspective would "as a minimum, prompt some to pursue a rational, analytic, non-partisan path - at least when the matter at hand is revealing cause and effect."

We do need to understand and arrive at consensus about the circumstances that led to the collapse of the indigenous financial services sector in Jamaica more than a decade ago.

It is still important to understand why Finsac was created; why so many billions of dollars were spent.

If a commission of inquiry will provide the context, identify the causes, assess the responses and allow truth to be told, no right thinking person could be opposed to the idea. Boom and bust in capitalism's cycles exist. A commission will not abolish this.

Isolating cause and consequence of the meltdown to avoid repetition is a great idea. Without the crash and meltdown there would be no need for a Finsac, no billions of taxpayer funds expended, no consequential debt service overhang.

But it seems more likely that such an objective would be achieved by legislative, institutional and regulatory change, guided by expert review of the period rather than a commission.

Both published, publicly available and private, unpublished work on these issues already exist. Solutions are in no way, to use the cliché, rocket science.

wilbe65@yahoo.com