When Bruce Golding asked Don Wehby to join his Cabinet after the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) victory in the 2007 general election, conventional wisdom was that the new prime minister lacked faith in the skills of the party's long-time shadow finance minister, Audley Shaw, and was seeking someone to hold Mr Shaw's hand in the portfolio.

It is understandable, therefore, that last week, as Mr Wehby came to the end of his two-year stint in Government and prepared to return to the private sector, there was renewed speculation whether Mr Shaw would be afforded more support.

As galling as he may have found Mr Wehby's presence, Mr Shaw clearly made the best of it. But it would not come as a surprise that the finance minister has made it clear, according to the chatter in political circles, that he would not welcome another person at National Heroes Circle with full ministerial rank.

We agree with Mr Shaw, which is not to question Mr Wehby's skill or competence, or his achievements at the finance ministry, where he sought to implement unemotional, private-sector management and efficiency systems to a ponderous bureaucracy. We hope that the approaches to budgeting and financial analyses will be deepened and widened.

But while Mr Wehby, an accountant, brought needed skills to the Government, the immediate priorities, we believe, do not necessarily demand his replacement with someone of the same competencies - at least not in a ministerial role. Or, if some such person is to be named to the finance ministry, it should be in the absence of the ambiguities and uncertainties of the past. There must be one finance minister: the new person or Mr Shaw.

Macroeconomists

Faced with the global recession and a domestic economic crisis, the administration's most urgent requirement, in our view, is for a strong team of macroeconomists with a track record of real-world achievement.

Such skills are short in the Government. There are Jamaicans, however, with the necessary experience, some of whom helped the country through a similar crisis two decades ago. High-quality technocrats provide political leaders with credible analyses and workable policy options, from which they choose for implementation.

The other key requirement of the Government, therefore, is a level of political skills much higher than hitherto displayed: the capacity to tell people frankly about the tough choices to be made to pull the country through the turbulent times, while motivating them to greater effort.

This must primarily be Mr Golding's job; a conversion to transformational leadership.

Last week, at a farewell luncheon in his honour, Mr Wehby praised Mr Golding's "decisive leadership" and said that once Jamaica pulled through the currency crisis, he would be recognised as the country's "best prime minister". But it is the route over the crisis that is of issue, demanding, as Mr Wehby observed, the "expending of some political capital".

We are not yet convinced that Mr Golding is fully prepared for that investment.

At least he has not spoken with the necessary and consistent clarity about the issues at hand, and what precisely is to be the scope of recovery and the specific price to be paid to achieve it. It is, perhaps, that the PM needs help in formulating the appropriate communication strategy.

The matter, we remind, is urgent and the time is short.

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