A cut of $1.9 billion from the education transformation budget, in the first supplementary estimates for 2006/2007 should be one of the most explosive items during Tuesday’s examination of the figures by the Standing Finance Committee (SFC) of the House of Representatives.

The cut is expected to raise concerns following the revelation by Education Minister Maxine Henry-Wilson of a need for increased school spaces.

The minister noted that a space audit, which provided details of needs by parish and region, has been completed.

“This will allow us to properly target our efforts in the areas of greatest need, while undertaking initiatives to ensure a medium and long-term response,” she said.

However, she added that it was not feasible to provide the total number of spaces in the short term, because “our audit indicates that at the primary level, if we were to go at the current requirements, we would probably need about 91,685 school spaces”.

“But if we were to factor in all the variables as recommended by the Task Force (on Education) – class size, prescribed space according to new international standards, and getting rid of the shift system – we would probably need 228,800 school spaces at an estimated cost of $44.8 billion,” she added.

At the secondary level, she said that 187,190 spaces would be needed with the present system, but again, if class sizes were to be reduced, the shift system eliminated, and the prescribed spaces made available, then 250,000 spaces would be needed.

“Clearly, it is not something that we are going to be able to do immediately,” she said.

Henry-Wilson said that the ministry will be able to provide more than 16,990 new school spaces by the end of 2007.

For Region Six, which is of particular concern, Henry-Wilson assured that this critical gap would be addressed, with the creation of more than 3,500 spaces by September.

For this year, the education transformation programme’s focus should have been on construction of new schools, general repairs to identified schools, physical works associated with the establishment of ICT in schools and the provision of furniture and equipment.

The budget also included funding for homework programmes and summer camps for troubled students, guidance, counselling and mentorship programmes, improving the management systems in the schools, provision of nutritional support for students and the development and implementation of appropriate ICT systems to facilitate management, administration, teaching and learning functions in the education system.

PM delays entry into reparations debate

Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller did not speak in the reparations debate which closed on Tuesday in the House of Representatives, after three weeks of contributions.

But leader of the opposition, Bruce Golding, did and raised some very interesting points which will certainly form part of the agenda for the deliberations of a select committee appointed to review Mike Henry’s resolution.

You may recall that on February 20, the leader of government business, Dr Peter Phillips, informed the House that the prime minister would participate in the debate.

According to Phillips, the PM had indicated an interest in participating, but felt that the matter was of such critical importance that she wanted to conclude consultations she had begun, both within and outside Jamaica, before making her contribution.

He said that she was having talks with critically interested sections of the community, including Rastafarians, and that she had also begun, but not yet concluded, consultations with her Caricom colleagues and wanted to make her contribution after proceeding further with those consultations.

On Tuesday, Phillips’ deputy, junior minister Fitz Jackson, who deputised as House leader, reported that following a decision to appoint a special select committee to review the resolution, the prime minister will not make a presentation on the issue until after the committee makes its report to Parliament.

He said that it was recognised, from the discussions, that there was a high level of interest in the issue.

“Therefore, this special committee will give the privilege to members who wish to delve into this matter and to come up with specific recommendations for consideration by the Cabinet,” he said.

The absence of the prime minister from the debate, however, was a major loss and has created a vacuum in the deliberations.

It was important for the leader of the opposition to record his position on the issues prior to the meeting of the committee. It was also important for the prime minister to not only record her position but to also inform the House of the agenda of her current discussions, especially with Caricom.

Golding expressed his disappointment on Tuesday when he made his contribution to the debate.

“I am disappointed that last week the leader of the House indicated that the prime minister would have been participating in the debate. I gather now that she intends to do so, not in this debate but in whatever debate ensues from the report of the committee,” Golding said.

“It would have been good to hear from her, based on what the leader of the House said last week, that she was going to consult with her Caricom colleagues. It would have been good to hear what soundings she got from other Caricom countries. I would have been anxious to hear, for example, if this matter was ever brought on the agenda of Caricom discussions, the heads of government meeting. I am not aware that it has ever been,” he said.

The fact is that special or joint select committees on issues as controversial as reparations rarely conclude their deliberations within a specified time, and even if they do, the report stays on the Order Paper forever, without ever being fully debated, as was the case with the discussions on the use of ganja.

This special select committee will be chaired by minister of tourism, entertainment and culture, Aloun Assamba, under whose portfolios the issue falls, and will also comprise Government members Victor Cummings, Sharon Hay-Webster, Dr Neil McGill, Luther Buchanan, Dr Patrick Harris; and Opposition members Mike Henry, who moved the resolution, Andrew Holness, Olivia ‘Babsy’ Grange and Ernest Smith.

Table the IMF report, urges Shaw

The Opposition spokesman on finance and the public service Audley Shaw is concerned that while the Government has publicly welcomed the latest economic report on Jamaica from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), two weeks later the country still awaits the details of the report.

The issue dates back to Monday, February 19 when minister of information and development, Donald Buchanan, told reporters covering the weekly post-Cabinet briefing at Jamaica House that in a presentation to the Cabinet that day, Finance Minister Dr Omar Davies described the report as the “most positive” he had seen from the IMF in the past 18 years.

The 18 years span his four years as head of the Planning Institute of Jamaica (PIOJ) and his 14 years as finance minister. Buchanan said that the minister received the report on the previous Friday, February 16.

Buchanan also said that Davies would highlight the report in his contribution to the debate on the First Supplementary Estimates 2006/2007, which is scheduled for Tuesday. But Shaw feels that the minister should have tabled the report last week Tuesday along with the supplementary estimates.

Because Davies was absent Tuesday, Shaw made the request of the junior minister in the ministry, Fitz Jackson, who had informed the House that the Standing Finance Committee (SFC), which consists of all 60 MPs, will meet Tuesday morning at 10 o’clock to examine the estimates and the debate would follow at 2 o’clock that afternoon.

“I would ask if the honourable minister of state would make available to the House, in preparation for this examination, the report of the IMF which has been referred to by the minister of information…which has not been made available by the minister of finance, is not available on the website of the IMF, but it is a matter which is in the public domain as announced by the Government,” Shaw said.

“I am respectfully asking the minister of state to make this report, that we are told is in the possession of the minister of finance, to make it available to this honourable House,” he added.

Jackson responded: “I fully appreciate the anxiety of the member to hear the good news from the IMF contained in that report. But it is the case, as is the practice: the IMF will make the findings available by communicating to the minister of finance, and that was the basis on which he could have made the announcement that was made.”

He said that while the full report is not yet available, “it is quite possible that, before we meet on Tuesday, it might very well be made public by the IMF”.

But that did not satisfy Shaw.

“The minister of finance has a report in his possession,” said Shaw. “Is it not a matter of public record that it should be made available to the public? It has been the subject of an announcement at a post-Cabinet press briefing.”

But Jackson said that the normal protocol for the issuing of IMF reports would be followed in this case.

Debt to GDP ratio row

An exchange between university lecturers and Breakfast Club colleagues Dr Trevor Munroe (Government) and Dr Christopher Tufton (Opposition) in the Senate on Friday is worth recalling.

During the debate on a bill seeking to lift the public loan ceiling from $650 billion to $700 billion, Senator Tufton, who spoke first, criticised the Government for failing to fulfil a commitment made in 2002, as part of its debt management strategy, to reduce the debt to GDP ratio to 100 per cent by 2006. He noted that in 2006 it was still as high as 130 per cent.

Senator Munroe rose and, after referring to the need for members of the Senate, especially those from the campus, to do their homework, pointed out that the debt to GDP ratio had fallen from 140 per cent in 2003/2004 to 131.5 per cent in 2005/2006.

Senator Tufton rose on a Point of Order to explain that he had specifically referred to the fact that the Government had failed to fulfil its promise in 2002 to reduce the ratio to 100 per cent by 2006 and not to whether it had fallen since then.

“So let me clarify that I did my homework,” he responded.

But Senator Munroe insisted.

“I am dealing with the clear impression being given that the debt to GDP ratio in the country is going up. It is going down,” Senator Munroe said.

He said he felt that the information that the ratio is going down needed to be brought to the attention of the Senate.

Well, that’s what happens when lecturers become politicians.

$1 billion added to CWC spending

Just over $1 billion have been added to Government’s spending on the Cricket World Cup (CWC) 2007 in the Supplementary Estimates tabled on Tuesday in the House of Representatives.

It could not be ascertained, however, if the $1-billion stated in the estimates was in addition to the $8.1 billion which minister of finance and planning Dr Omar Davies, in answers to questions from Opposition MP James Robertson last week, said was being spent.

If the amount is additional, it would increase the Government’s spending on the event to approximately $9.2 billion.

The additional allocations listed in the supplementary estimates were as follows:

In the Ministry of National Security’s recurrent expenditures, $131.5 million as additional requirement for contribution to Caricom for CWC 2007, and $163.9 million for salaries and travel due to new settlements and the purchase of technical equipment to upgrade the facilities of the Immigration Department as well as preparedness for CWC 2007;

In the same ministry’s capital expenditures, $113.2 million to purchase additional requirements for the event, including CCTV ($10 million), telecommunications equipment ($83.2 million) and other equipment $20 million, and $217.5 million to purchase motor vehicles and bikes to equip the police to address the upsurge in crime and assist with security during the event;

In the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, $17.5 million has been added to the $22 million already committed to purchase some 20 BMWs to replace the ministry’s fleet of protocol vehicles;

In the Ministry of Health, $299.1 million has been added to complete infrastructure work;

In the Ministry of Industry, Technology, Energy and Commerce, an additional $473,000 has been made available to offset the cost of licence fees for radio communications and broadcast for the event;

And in the Ministry of Housing, Transport, Water and Works, $150 million to facilitate the rehabilitation of 50 Jamaica Urban Transit Company buses for the event.