Dear Editor,

Your editorial of June 7 is very timely and to the point. The budget presented by the government is a budget of surrender and mindlessness. It cannot all be about austerity. Where are the incentives for growing our way out of this crazy situation in which we have found ourselves?

This small country with a 1.7-trillion debt per capita must rank us as one of the most indebted country in the world.

This debt is so huge it cannot be retired through the cutting of a few programmes and making some staff positions redundant.

As a country, we have to grow ourselves out of this albatross of a debt that is hanging around our necks and preventing us from moving forward.

How did we get into this mess? What was all this money - $1.7 trillion - spent on? Is proper accounting available for this expenditure?

This money was obviously not properly spent. One would have thought that borrowed funds would have been used for productive endeavours in order to benefit the country materially and to pay back the creditors.

This certainly was not the case, and as a result, the citizens of the country are being squeezed to the pulp.

The country's infrastructure - roads, water, education, health, etc - all need to be addressed, but because of this colossal debt almost nothing is being done to improve the situation.

We have now reached the stage where nobody wants to lend us money anymore. They want to know how such money will be repaid, hence our current standoff with the IMF.

As you have so clearly stated in your editorial, if this country is going to climb out of the financial rut into which we have now found ourselves, the leadership of the country has to summon the people to rise up and unleash their productive talents and genius to rescue us from the current financial nightmare.

Roy Wilson

Roy.Wilson@ajasja.com