Prime Minister Bruce Golding made several announcements during Tuesday night's debate on the new supplementary estimates. Here are some of those announcements:

Golding on budget and impending staff cuts

These adjustments, unavoidable though they are, do not address the underlying fiscal problems the country faces. They are simply a tourniquet - an effort to narrow the imbalance of "unbalanceable" books.

Golding on the recession

The economy is experiencing a severe downturn. Our export earnings have been cut in half due largely, but not only, to the shutdown of a large portion of the bauxite/alumina sector. Some 30,000 people have lost their jobs; others have seen a decline in their earnings. Remittances which support so many families have dropped by 15%. The result is that almost every category of revenue collections is below what we had projected and in some instances below even what was collected last year. The shortfall in revenue collections is projected to be $16 billion for this fiscal year and as a result the projected fiscal deficit has had to be revised upwards from 5.5 per cent to 8.7 per cent.

Golding on borrowing

Jamaica remains perpetually "hooked" on borrowings. Our earnings cannot support our level of indebtedness so we have to keep borrowing to repay what we have borrowed and to do what little we can to provide desperately needed services to the people.

Golding on the Government

Government operations constitute an impediment to growth. Government gobbles up the largest chunk of the money in the banking system that ought properly to be going toward financing investment. So, instead of money looking for investments that will create jobs and stimulate growth, that money is captured by government to service debt and pay for the high cost of government. Interest rates remain high because the market knows that the government has to borrow and therefore it can demand exorbitant interest rates.

Government operations remain cumbersome, government requirements in many instances are unnecessary or no longer relevant and, where necessary, are often inefficient and costly to the taxpayers who have to pay for it, business people who are frustrated by it and ordinary people seeking to do ordinary things who cannot avoid it.

Golding on change

We will have to trim the size of government; and I'm talking about the entire government bureaucracy not just what is known as Central Government.

Some categories cannot be reduced. We need more nurses and pharmacists and policemen. But some departments and agencies will have to be eliminated because some of the traditional chores of government departments and agencies will have to be eliminated. Some will have to be merged in order to achieve greater efficiency and avoid overlapping. Processes will have to be simplified. Some of the bureaucratic requirements we impose on the public and on businesses serve no useful purpose and will have to be abolished.

We require too many forms to be filled out, too much to-ing and fro-ing, too many people that you must speak to, too many places that you must go. And with every transaction that has to be undertaken, we create an opportunity for corruption.

Will the process lead to job cuts? That can hardly be avoided.

And in reducing the size of government, the size of the Cabinet and the number of Ministries will also be dealt with.

Golding on budget and impending staff cuts

These adjustments, unavoidable though they are, do not address the underlying fiscal problems the country faces. They are simply a tourniquet - an effort to narrow the imbalance of "unbalanceable" books.

Golding on the Government

Government operations constitute an impediment to growth. Government gobbles up the largest chunk of the money in the banking system that ought properly to be going toward financing investment. So, instead of money looking for investments that will create jobs and stimulate growth, that money is captured by government to service debt and pay for the high cost of government. Interest rates remain high because the market knows that the government has to borrow and therefore it can demand exorbitant interest rates.

Government operations remain cumbersome, government requirements in many instances are unnecessary or no longer relevant and, where necessary, are often inefficient and costly to the taxpayers who have to pay for it, business-people who are frustrated by it and ordinary people seeking to do ordinary things who cannot avoid it.

Golding on the recession

The economy is experiencing a severe downturn. Our export earnings have been cut in half due largely, but not only, to the shutdown of a large portion of the bauxite/alumina sector. Some 30,000 people have lost their jobs; others have seen a decline in their earnings. Remittances which support so many families have dropped by 15%. The result is that almost every category of revenue collections is below what we had projected and in some instances below even what was collected last year. The shortfall in revenue collections is projected to be $16 billion for this fiscal year and as a result the projected fiscal deficit has had to be revised upwards from 5.5 per cent to 8.7 per cent.

Golding on change

We will have to trim the size of government; and I'm talking about the entire government bureaucracy not just what is known as central government.

Some categories cannot be reduced. We need more nurses and pharmacists and policemen. But some departments and agencies will have to be eliminated because some of the traditional chores of government departments and agencies will have to be eliminated. Some will have to be merged in order to achieve greater efficiency and avoid overlapping. Processes will have to be simplified. Some of the bureaucratic requirements we impose on the public and on businesses serve no useful purpose and will have to be abolished.

We require too many forms to be filled out, too much to-ing and fro-ing, too many people that you must speak to, too many places that you must go. And with every transaction that has to be undertaken, we create an opportunity for corruption.

Will the process lead to job cuts? That can hardly be avoided.

And in reducing the size of government, the size of the Cabinet and the number of ministries will also be dealt with.

Golding on borrowing

Jamaica remains perpetually "hooked" on borrowings. Our earnings cannot support our level of indebtedness so we have to keep borrowing to repay what we have borrowed and to do what little we can to provide desperately needed services to the people.