A most sober address was delivered by Prime Minister Bruce Golding at the 66th annual conference of the Jamaica Labour Party. His timbre took on a tinny tone when he talked about the inevitability of Jamaica having to return to the IMF in order to tidy up the fiscal mess we are in. With so many of us waiting with bated breath for a glimmer of hope, it was probably the hardest speech that Golding has ever had to deliver.

While he did say that it was time for a reality check, other than stating the January 1 date for increasing the tax threshold to $440,000 and promising to outline “very shortly” the terms of the IMF agreement, there was no timeline, no specifics, no dates and no targets given in relation to what the Government has to do: provide a safe, secure and healthy environment, an effective justice system, quality education, basic health care, support for the disadvantaged and vulnerable, public infrastructure, an efficient bureaucracy, appropriate policy and regulatory mechanisms, and effective diplomatic representation.

Contrary to his claim that he was at the conference to talk “to the people of Jamaica as your leader and as a leader should”, we now have a feeling that Mr Golding is the warm-up band for the real show, and it is really the IMF who we’re waiting on to run t’ings.

In all fairness, during his speech Golding took no credit for any of the Government’s successes. But this column will offer a shred of evidence that the Government is working, and overtime in fact, to deliver on a promise made.

About a week ago, the National Water Commission — a statutory organisation charged with the responsibility of providing potable water and wastewater services for the people of Jamaica — told customers served by the Mona and Hope Water Supply and Hermitage/Constant Spring Systems that “beginning Monday, November 23, 2009, customers will, depending on their elevation and location on the system, either have no piped water or have low water pressure between 8:00 pm and 4:00 am nightly.”

I am here to testify that not only has the NWC delivered on its promise, it has gone beyond the call of duty by not confining the lock-off to the published 8:00 pm – 4:00 am period. In my area at least, water goes away no later than 6:30 pm and returns at 7:15 am. Now, how’s that for a government at work?

On another note, we wonder what, if anything, will come out of the Financial Sector Adjustment Company (FINSAC) Commission of Enquiry which took place over three days this week and will continue next week Wednesday. Early in his response to questions posed by the enquiry’s panel, former finance minister Dr Omar Davies criticised members of the “Owner’s Club” — a group of bank owners who came to his ministry for help during the worst financial crisis this country has ever seen — for “selling the notion to the nation that they had been robbed”.

We certainly hope that the Commission pursues Dr Davies’ suggested investigation into the actions of this group as vigorously as they will look into Dr Davies’ claim that FINSAC was a ‘healer’ brought in to rescue Jamaica’s failing financial sector.

We hope, too, that Dr Davies will rack his own conscience and rethink his statement that it would have been unwise for the minister of finance to micro-manage the bad debts, as it could have led to accusations of political interference. This defence sounds much like another case of government working overtime but at the wrong thing.

For any kind of interference, political or not, would have been welcomed in the case of Jamaica Transformer Limited whose 45 workers were ordered out of the factory at gunpoint, and the place subsequently shut down and stripped, all because the owners were unable to pay FINSAC $54 million in interest on a Workers Bank loan of $11 million.

Interference would have been welcomed in the case of Mechesk Willis too. Willis borrowed $480,000 to improve his growing business. Half a million dollars soon became seven million dollars and Willis — his business ruined and his house gone — and his family, including a two-month-old granddaughter, were tossed into the street because of his inability to satisfy a ballooning debt.

These are just two of hundreds, if not thousands of sad stories, some far more tragic than others, that came as a result of a government’s failure to manage a country’s financial crisis. So we take the point that Mr Golding made at the conference on the weekend: we can either take the bitter medicine that the IMF financial professionals might offer us for our own good — and not relive the tragedy of another financial meltdown — or we can swallow some nice bush tea that our own muckety-mucks will try to cook up for themselves and perish.

In identifying these two options, the prime minister has given us the harsh truth. To decline the assistance of the IMF and leave the country’s financial matters in its current hands is tantamount to “prepar(ing) ourselves for a painful and certain death”.

We should believe him.

scowicomm@gmail.com

DAVIES… claimed that FINSAC was a ‘healer’ brought in to rescue Jamaica’s failing financial sector