If there is anything good for leaders in tough times like these, it is the opportunity to take the hard decisions with relative assurance of support from their constituents.

It is a good time, therefore, for politicians to retreat from poor policies and for governments to rescind bad ideas. They can blame their actions on prevailing circumstances. In that regard, Prime Minister Bruce Golding should grasp the moment.

Among the most egregious undertakings of Mr Golding's Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) during the campaign for the last general election was the promise to allocate up to five per cent of the national budget to a so-called Constituency Development Fund (CDF), which parliamentarians could steer towards projects in their ridings. By the time the JLP manifesto came to be written, wiser heads had apparently prevailed, but the proposed amount for the CDF was halved, which would still have meant, that on the basis of the budget originally tabled by the Government, MPs would have access to over $12 billion in near-discretionary spending.

Signs of hard times

However, by the time Audley Shaw, the finance minister, delivered the Budget, the signs of hard times were already evident. But politicians like to feel the dripping fat of pork. So, while there was a cutback, there could be no elimination of the CDF - which, really, is an expansion of P.J. Patterson's Social and Economic Support Programme (SESP) - the trough around which both sides in the legislature gathered and one of the few things on which Jamaica's two big political parties found easy consensus.

In the end, politicians have access to $1.2 billion, which allows them to make grand declarations about contributions or spending on this or that constituency project. They can't wait for better times to expand the trough. For, providing MPs with additional pork reinforces their vision of themselves as dispensers of spoils and as social-welfare officers rather than as representatives of the people.

Not only does this undermine the concept of the Westminster model of parliamentary democracy, but it does extreme violence to the notion of a clear separation of powers, which Mr Golding used to champion. It weakens the public bureaucracy, extends the power of the legislature and widens the avenues for corruption.

A bad idea

In other words, like the SESP, the CDF is a bad idea. It should be discontinued. And Mr Golding has the perfect opportunity so to do. And if he doesn't, Mr Shaw should insist upon it.

Our view is that the Government should go cold turkey, eliminating the programme in one sweep. The 'saved' funds should be reallocated to the appropriate Budget heads, where the money can be spent in accordance with programme guidelines and appropriate accountability. Let MPs make proper representation for their constituents to appropriate government agencies.

Should Mr Golding and Mr Shaw feel that they might not, in one go, upend the pork barrel, they should take the CDF back to the level of the last SESP and totally eliminate it by 2010-2011.

We appreciate the difficulty that Messrs Golding and Shaw, being politicians, would have giving up such access to a pork barrel and what they might consider to be an important lever of consensus and control. These are hard times when every cent, properly spent, counts.

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