I feel compelled to comment on the current debate surrounding Jamaica's possible future relationship with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The history of the IMF's involvement in Jamaica is a painful one. However, these past encounters have much to teach us, and them.

The return to the IMF must be part of a broader economic restructuring process. This process should address fundamental issues such as our unsustainable debt to GDP ratio and the fact that the public-sector wage bill is about one-fifth of our budget. The only way to achieve this is through shared sacrifice. Developing an inclusive and robust social partnership can be the vehicle for achieving this shared sacrifice.

Policy changes

At the heart of this partnership should be a broad-based working group to develop a reform scenario and specify the policy changes needed to achieve it. Partners in this arrangement make decisions jointly, as opposed to informing each other of decisions after the fact. A review mechanism for assessing the effectiveness of implementation and to receive feedback from partners should also be agreed.

However, for us to pursue this path we must recognise that Government alone cannot make these profound changes. The Opposition will have to be involved, and committed. The public is also yet to learn about the nature and extent of private-sector involvement in preparing our request for assistance from the fund. To enable such a change, the Government would have to change its modus operandi. Whether it is negotiating with unions or the number of cases of swine flu, secrecy and rumours of secrecy are badly draining the goodwill of the electorate towards the Golding Government.

The IMF must also undertake a course correction. How can the fund advise counter-cyclical fiscal action to ensure social stability and prevent rapid economic deter-ioration in the developed world, while continuing to recommend its traditional advice of single-digit inflation and tight fiscal control elsewhere? This underscores the need for fundamental changes to the IMF's governance structure.

Developing countries such as Jamaica, which in the main have paid the price of the IMF's past errors, must voice their loud objections to continuation of the status quo ante. Moreover, developing countries must use our multilateral contacts in a concerted manner to promote change.

Fast-tracked IMF reform

Demands for reform are growing louder. Recently, the final com-munique of the United Nations Conference on the World Financial Crisis and its Impact on Deve-lopment stated that "It is imperative to undertake, as a matter of priority, a comprehensive and fast-tracked reform of the IMF. We look forward to this accelerated progress in order to increase its credibility and accountability."

For many development profes-sionals, this is a well-worn territory. Some reform proposals have advocated a substantial change in the formulae used to calculate quotas and voting rights, so that poorer countries have greater influence over the organisation's policy positions; appointment of the managing director of the fund through more democratic means; and deve-lopment of structures for, and norms of, genuine multilateral co-operation within the fund.

More effective institution

With the trebling of the resources available to the fund by the G20 in April, and growing evidence of the fund's intransigence, critics are charging that the institution is much larger but not necessarily much nicer. Forget nicer. I will settle for more effective. No financial institution can remain relevant when its advice tends to worsen, and not improve, the economic performance of its clients.

For their part, governments must abandon the past failed strategies of economic reform and embrace new ways of doing things. As a people, our past has shown that the courage and maturity needed to spur our leaders to such action is not always out of reach.

I am, etc.,

ASTLEY HENRY

astleyhenry1@yahoo.com

Kingston 8