THE PEOPLE'S National Party (PNP) has called for the reconvening of Parliament to discuss the state of the economy, post-Standard and Poor's downgrade. I have a better idea: Let the PNP's top economic thinker debate the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) top economic thinker, an Omar Davies-Bruce Golding matchup, in the public interest.

I am not seeking theatrical diversions ahead of our oncoming International Monetary Fund (IMF) headaches. But the PNP is becoming so strident on economic matters and the debate on the economy is heating up to such an extent that it is best for the nation that we hear the two key economic policy thinkers in the main parties debate the crisis and the way forward. The parliamentary debates are not structured for effective give-and-take.

The Media Association Jamaica Ltd or the Press Association of Jamaica should organise a forum where, for a full two and a half hours, the prime minister and the former minister of finance, two of our brightest, most informed and better-read politicians, can debate economic policy and strategy. There are too many arguments being bandied about and people are not being called to account for them or to answer serious questions. A lot of mischief is made that way and much disinformation and empty propaganda easily facilitated.

ineffective

Golding and Davies

Before the national elections we usually have a sterile, staid and thoroughly ineffective debate format, which might be good to test people's wits and ability to think on their feet but not very effective in really getting to the heart of issues and in fleshing out ideas. We need a debate where each speaker has up to 40 minutes to outline his main arguments and proposals and where the speakers can have 20 minutes for rebuttals. The rest of the time would be for each of them to have a free-flowing crosstalk, ably moderated by a someone with a reputation for fairness and balance.

The prime minister has been speaking to ordinary Jamaicans at town-hall meetings and has been making

the case that there is no alternative to going back to the IMF at this time; that his Government has been doing the best under the difficult circumstances imposed on the country by the global economic crisis.

He has been saying times are tough and cutbacks are coming but the strategies the Government is pursuing are the best possible ones. Is that really so? Has the Government bungled things? Was the Government naíve, incompetent or irresponsible in crafting its budget this year? Did it lack credibility 'from morning', as Omar Davies has been charging?

acknowledgement and preparation

Did the Government wait too long to acknowledge the global crisis, and would an earlier acknowledgement and preparation put the country in a better position today? Was the Government wrong or dishonest in brushing aside earlier suggestions that they were gong to the IMF? Would an earlier approach to the IMf have put the economy on a better footing, and would it not certainly have prevented this disastrous Standard and Poor's rating, which puts us in league with basket cases like Ecuador, Pakistan and Ukraine?

Is the present management of the finance ministry amateurish, incompetent, and is the job proving too big for Audley Shaw? What's the issue with our primary surplus which was so strong under Omar Davies but which has plummeted under Man a Yard?

These are issues I would love to hear answered by the prime minister in a debate. The prime minister keeps talking about the need for us to be ready to take advantage of the recovery after the global crisis, but what exactly are his Government's plans for that, and how credible are they? What does Mr Golding have in mind for the manufacturing sector, the agricultural sector, for agro-processing, for services, for small business?

What plans does he have for improving Jamaica's foreign investment climate so that investors will want to plough their money here, rather than in any of the many countries engaged in a race-to-the-bottom competition for their dollar?

What is the Golding Government intending to do differently from what has been done for the last few decades to really pull the country out of the economic hole it is in? Mr Golding has said what we were in crisis before the global financial meltdown, and that our pants were at our feet even before the sub-prime crisis of August 2007 and the Lehman Brothers crash of September 15 last year. But what does he plan to do to get those pants up so we can hide our shame and start moving again?

Journalists have been asking him questions in some exclusive interviews, but he needs questions to be put to him by the Opposition and government-in-waiting. How well is the Government really managing? We hear global crisis, global crisis every time we seek to assess Bruce Golding's almost two-year tenure. He told Garfield Burford on CVM's 'Direct', in answer to a question about his pre-election promises, that every leader elected since 2007 has had to adjust promises made. Is Golding hiding behind the global crisis, using it as a shield against legitimate criticisms of his Government's economic stewardship?

technical cock-ups

And what of the PNP? They are acting as though they have been out of power for a decade or so; as though they have all the answers to Jamaica's economic woes. What differently would the PNP do if it were elected to power soon? If we threw out Golding and Shaw for incompetence, technical cock-ups and 'shambockle performance' (as my friend Ralston Hyman charges), what plans would the PNP have to get us out of the crisis?

How would the PNP have avoided going back to the IMF and facing its demands for strict fiscal compression and cutbacks? Would going earlier have made all the difference? Would acknowledging the global crisis from mid-2007 or early 2008 put us in a position to avoid IMF conditionalities and make us 'run wid' things for the poor and oppressed? How would the PNP manage the fallout in bauxite, remittances, tourism and the dry-up of the international private credit markets; the compression of export markets and the global slowdown in foreign direct investments?

I want to hear Omar Davies tell us in clear, concrete terms how he would manage this recession-battered economy differently from Bruce Golding and Audley Shaw. I am sure he is not naíve enough to believe that merely having a stronger team at the Ministry of Finance - boosted by his own expertise, no doubt - would be enough to make all the difference. A broke Superman can't help us.

Those who are not partisan or wedded to either JLP or PNP must tell me what fundamentally is different between the economic strategies and policies of these two parties. Tell me, you who are in manufacturing, agriculture, construction, small business, the financial sector, telecommunications, information services, small business, what's fundamentally, critically different about your experience under the JLP Government of the 1980s, the PNP's of the 1990s and the Bruce Golding administration?

People keep asking, what's the strategy two years down the road when we are deeper in debt after the IMF agreement? Ronnie Thwaites and Ralston Hyman are asking every morning, what's the strategy for paying back the debt, how can we be piling on more debt without talking about how we are going to repay it? The Govern-ment is not telling us what strategies they have for moving the productive sector, for getting out of this debt trap, they charge. OK.

Now, will Omar Davies tell us what he would do to jump-start the economy? This is what the debate would bring out. Golding would get the chance to ask him some serious questions and we would get the chance to hear how Omar answers. For if we are going to making a big thing out of the hardships, pain and heartaches which will come shortly, we at least must be assured that there is a better way. Civil society must insist that before people's ignorance and emotions are exploited for political purposes, further setting back our chances of economic recovery, that we at least have a debate so that opponents of the Government and 'the IMF path' can state clearly state their better alternative.

reckless downgrade

We want to know that alternative. Recently, Standard and Poor's unjustifiably, irresponsibly and recklessly downgraded Jamaica. We had to depend on other leading players in the international financial community, like JP Morgan and Oppenheimer and CO, among others, including local players, to show up Standard and Poor's for its sloppiness. The progressive PNP, which should know how these credit rating agencies are used by the international capitalist class to punish developing countries and bring them in line, opportunistically avoided a critique of the rating agency.

Golding in his presentation to the private sector on Tuesday morning calmly and systematically destroyed any credibility to that report, showing incisively, as many analysts have demonstrated, that there is absolutely no basis for its downgrade.

The Gleaner editorial of Tuesday was misguided and terribly flawed in analysis. For a first-rate analysis of the Standard and Poor's report and a background to the issue, you have to read young Juvene Yee's devastating critique in the Observer's Wednesday Business. As a country - and this includes the Opposition - we should have united in opposing this faulty, hearsay 'rating' which only underscores the lack of credibility of these agencies which have been shamed - and are now overcompensating - in the recent Wall Street crisis.

Of course, the JLP in Opposition would have done exactly what the PNP did. That was how the JLP behaved in Opposition. The JLP then was excessively optimistic and naíve, sprouting foolishness about the economy and making out that our problems were just Omar's fault. Well, they are now learning their lesson. But does the PNP have to continue this silly game?

Let the debate begin, so we can see which emperor is naked!

Ian Boyne is a veteran journalist who may be reached at ianboyne1@yahoo.com or columns@gleanerjm.com.