This is a very busy week for Prime Minister Bruce Golding. Sunday was his big speech to the closing session of the annual conference of his Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), the primary news from which was that the Government has not reached an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to borrow US$1.2 billion. And there was the reminder that the fiscal adjustment in the economic crisis will be tough.

Since then, Mr Golding has spent a fair bit of time chaperoning Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, who arrived on Monday for a three-day state visit that underlines Jamaica's enduring relationship with the East African country, across administrations, that once did not appear likely.

Michael Manley, the late former democratic socialist prime minister and leader of the People's National Party, was a great friend of Julius Nyerere, his contemporary as Tanzania's leader, who made that big visit to Jamaica in 1974. Mr Nyerere and Mr Manley inveighed against the IMF and Mr Nyerere opened a cooperative farm in St James that bore his name. The JLP was then not fond of Mr Nyerere or his politics.

Unveiling

President Kikwete and Mr Golding have had bilateral meetings and last evening they both attended a cultural programme at the Little Theatre. And today Mr Golding will be in Gordon House for an address by President Kikwete to a joint sitting of of the House and Senate. Later, they will jointly unveil a statue of the late Jamaican athlete, Herb McKenley, at the National Stadium.

There will be more meetings in-between Mr Golding's other scheduled events. Then the prime minister plans to jet off to Trinidad and Tobago for several days for the summit of Common-wealth leaders.

We fully appreciate the importance of foreign affairs and foreign policy matters, and understand that weighty issues will be on the agenda in Port-of-Spain, including climate change, in which Jamaica, as an island state, has great interest. Hopefully, the Commonwealth leaders will be able to prod the world to a credible agreement at next month's climate-change conference in Copenhagen.

Important domestic

All that notwithstanding, we wonder whether Prime Minister Golding should not pass on Port-of-Spain and use the time to get some important domestic work done. His deputy and capable foreign minister, Dr Ken Baugh, can deal with matters in the twin-island republic.

Indeed, Mr Golding, as things now stand, is de facto finance minister, which is no disrespect to Mr Audley Shaw, who formally holds the the job. Mr Golding is working with a new central bank governor, Mr Brian Wynter, who took his job only this week. He has to be properly briefed on policy, including Mr Golding's thinking on interest rates and monetary strategy, dis-agreements over which contributed to the firing of Mr Wynter's predecessor, Derick Latibeaudiere. The financial secretary, Dr Wesley Hughes, was only recently appointed. There is still work to be done crafting an IMF agreement. Dr Hughes and Mr Wynter have to be assured of their negotiating brief, which has to come from the Government, and, specifically, Mr Golding.

These, we might suggest, ought to be the priorities if Mr Golding is to keep his promise of delivering an IMF agreement soon.

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