Wed, 08 February 2012
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| No IMF for Jamaica |
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 Heavily indebted Jamaica says it does not plan to
return to the International Monetary Fund, the IMF , for support at a time when
the island has been buffeted by global financial meltdown.Prime Minister Bruce Golding told journalists at a press conference April 8 that his administration does not plan to seek assistance from the IMF as Jamaica does not now have a balance of payment problem which would necessitate such support. However the Jamaican Prime Minister noted that the global financial meltdown has taken quite a toll on Jamaica, which has experienced significant falls in tourism spending, declines in remittance inflows to the island and a significant downturn in the key bauxite/alumina sector which accounts for over fifty percent of Jamaica's merchandise exports. Golding warned that in this fiscal year Jamaica could experience a sixty to sixty-five percent fall in traditional export earnings which could result in challenging balance of payment problems for the island. Jamaica has one of the highest debt to GDP ratios (over 125%) in the world and costly debt payments regularly eat up over 52 cents out of every dollar in the island's budget. The Golding administration which is less than two years old has been true to its election promise in 2007 to seek cheaper funding from the multilateral agencies such as the World Bank and the Inter American Development bank. However such funding is project specific. The IMF is an emotive issue for many Jamaicans. In the nineteen eighties, when Harvard-trained Edward Seaga was Prime Minister of Jamaica, the island underwent a painful and some thought necessary structural adjustment programme which saw over thirty thousand public sector workers losing their jobs. Many Jamaican political analysts attributed Seaga's subsequent electoral loss in February 1989 (to his nemesis, the Socialist-oriented and charismatic Michael Manley) to the harsh IMF stipulations of the time. When attorney at law succeeded Manley as Jamaican Prime Minister in the early nineteen nineties, he vowed never to take back Jamaica to the IMF so understandably the IMF is a serious political issue in Jamaica.
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