Dear Editor,

The Jamaican people have been drinking bitter medicine ever since the PNP put the country into the hands of the IMF. Up to 1972 when the JLP was voted out of office, the country’s economy was buoyant and there was no need to borrow from the IMF. However, by the end of the first term of the PNP, the economy was in serious trouble and for the first time the IMF was called to bail us out.

To this day we have not recovered from the mismanagement of the 70s. Since then, annual economic growth has averaged around zero per cent, national debt continues as a backbreaking burden, national reserves are at best unstable; the only growth has been in the size and cost of government.

What’s new about bitter medicine?

A very funny cartoon by The Gleaner’s Leandro in 1978 shows PM Michael Manley administering “bitter medicine” to a hospitalised patient. Obviously, the patient has not recovered after 30-odd years.

Kenneth Jones

kensjones2002@yahoo.com