The Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) has offered its assistance to the Bruce Golding administration, which is attempting to steer the country through the present economic turbulence.

"The private sector is willing to go as far as it needs to go to get the job done," PSOJ President Joseph Matalon declared yesterday in the presence of Prime Minister Bruce Golding at a Chairman's Club Forum in New Kingston.

"In this crisis, bold action must be our clarion call and we stand ready to provide concrete and meaningful support to this end," Matalon said. "We are firm in the belief that as proud Jamaicans we have the capacity to create the future that will finally fulfil the hopes and dreams of the founding fathers of this country."

The PSOJ president's offer of support came after he slammed the elected representatives and "we as a people" for several bad choices in the past which he claimed caused Jamaica to be heading towards a home-grown economic crisis long before the worldwide recession.

"We made a choice to perpetuate disequilibrium in our current account balances to the extent that building foreign-exchange earnings and promoting export-led growth became unfashionable notions," Matalon claimed.

He further argued that this was facilitated by the growth in remittances and foreign direct investment that served to mask the country's underperformance.

Tax reform ignored

According to Matalon, this was compounded by the easy access to the international capital market and the decision to ignore comprehensive tax reform.

The PSOJ president also expressed regret at what he said was the choice to accept cheaper, often subsidised imported products instead of building Jamaica's agricultural and manufacturing bases.

"Will we now finally make the difficult decisions so often avoided in the past? The good news is that I have every faith in the ability of Jamaicans to set our house in order," Matalon said.

He warned, however, that this would not be achieved unless all the stakeholders "join hands and build consensus around those key policy changes that can put us on a different path".

arthur.hall@gleanerjm.com