Although having drawn his attention to a similar initiative by Britain's Gordon Brown, this newspaper takes no credit for coaxing Prime Minister Bruce Golding into establishing a team of technocrats to monitor and analyse, on an ongoing basis, the global financial crisis.

That group was to have been headed by the Finance Minister, Audley Shaw, who has since fallen ill. It will include other officials from the finance ministry, as well as the central bank, the Financial Services Commission and the Planning Institute of Jamaica.

Their efforts, Mr Golding explained at a banquet of the Jamaica Manufacturers' Association (JMA) on Thursday night, would lead to "timely and proactive policy intervention" in the event that Jamaica is threatened by the crisis.

Focus on Jamaica's economy

Insofar as it has been structured, the focus of this team will be primarily on liquidity potential for fallouts in the macroeconomy. This assumption is congruent with the explanations by Don Wehby, a finance ministry minister with full Cabinet rank, when he spoke to brokers last Thursday.

Of course, the most obvious and immediate danger of the global crisis is the potential for contagion to Jamaica's financial system and its impact on the macroeconomy. Indeed, the country still plans to go to international markets for debt to cover obligations during the current fiscal year. Any such borrowing will be more expensive than when Jamaica last sought credit.

Broader dangers

Yet, there are broader dangers to Jamaica's economy from this crisis, than pressures on the financial sector infrastructure - as was pointed out by Mr Golding in his JMA speech. Already, this year, three quarter million jobs have been lost in the United States as banks tumbled, credit became tight and investors fled markets. More will go as firms collapse or downsize.

Many Jamaicans are among the new unemployed. They will have less money to remit to families at home. The situation is similar in Britain.

People who lose jobs will be more careful with their discretionary spending. If they spend less on foreign holidays, Jamaica's tourism will be less robust than expected. Other Jamaican exports will also hurt if markets turn soft.

Muscled urgency

This brings us back to the observation a week ago about Britain, to which we drew Mr Golding's attention. While Gordon Brown has government technocrats meeting often, theirs primarily is a support role; to bring the facts and to follow through on implementation.

Mr Brown has set up something akin to a 'war cabinet', not merely on the financial sector, but the entire economy. These ministers, with key portfolios, meet separately from the regular Cabinet, identifying and pushing through policies to resuscitate the economy. There is a sense of muscled urgency in this approach, which we commend to Mr Golding.

Safe constituency for Wehby

Significantly, Mr Brown used the global crisis to shuffle and, he hopes, rejuvenate his Government at a time when the Labour Party is in trouble with voters. Politics aside, we believe that such a renewal would be good for Mr Golding's Government.

Indeed, circumstance and Mr Shaw's illness provide Mr Golding with an opportunity to find a safe constituency for the technocratic Mr Wehby, to properly assign him the job and end the charade of having Mr Shaw at the helm. This is a strategy in which Mr Golding is quite versed. Ask Derrick Smith.

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