Picture a barefooted, broken man, aimlessly trudging the upscale streets of New Kingston. His tattered clothes are held together by all of the accumulated filth of his surroundings and his unwashed body’s sweat. To him, his only option is begging so that he will live to see tomorrow, next week. Beside him walks his only friend, Jamaica, itself in no better state.

The picture has been painted to us that the trajectory from here on is one which leads directly to the IMF. It has been fairly well established that our inability to provide any form of a cushion to deal with the vicious tailwind of the global economic recession must be laid at the feet of the PNP, especially the administration of 1989 to 2007, and previous JLP administrations which pursued a policy of politics first, mostly a corrupt and criminal one instead of sound economic policies and the development of our people.

A noted personality like Bruce Golding, conveniently when his party the JLP was out of power and he had flown off in his first great indulgence and formed the NDM, admitted that the politics practised by the JLP and the PNP stank and was hostile to real development. In recent times, Peter Phillips, conveniently too after his party the PNP had lost power, admitted that it was the pursuit of raw politics over everything else that has hampered our development.

A few weeks ago when the Golding administration announced a tax package to soak the poor in filth and sweat, we were told that many, if not most of the recommendations came from the 2003 Matalon Committee which suggested scrapping the idea of zero-rated items in GCT. It was none other than Dr Omar Davies, who was finance minister when he accepted the Matalon report, who recently came out as its greatest critic, conveniently also, because his party the PNP lost power in 2007.

Dr Davies was simply doing what his colleague Dr Peter Phillips had observed and admitted to about the game. Playing politics is par for the course.

That said, it is quite obvious that the IMF has recognised that this country has gone on for too long living off free meals; that is, the blood and sweat of those in developed countries. One could argue until the wayward husband comes home stone drunk that there is more than poetic justice in the developed world passing a few of their dollars our way because it was the merciless toil of black slaves which provided more than the catalyst for the development of Europe and the USA. But that argument could only stand up if the sons and daughters of black slaves had armies to enforce the desired collection of these dollars or if the Anglo-Saxon world could afford a conscience during a global recession.

As of now we are powerless mendicants and the IMF is our only identifiable passer-by dressed in a suit and tie. “Beg yu a ting nuh mi boss.”

Much has been written about whether the IMF is reformed or is still the ogre of the 1970s, very hostile to social policies. Devil or angel, the fact is, we have so run down our economy and our ability to sustain viability that it forces the IMF, the banker with an open door, not only to ensure that a loan to us is bankable, but to tell us that we have been highly irresponsible and to charge us with paying more for participating further in the polity that is ours.

According to Caroline Atkinson, director in the External Relations Department of the IMF in a letter to the press on January 1, 2010, “In most of the recently approved arrangements, the Fund has made sure that social spending is increased, protected, or refocused, to shield the most vulnerable from the consequences of the global crisis.These so-called ‘social conditionalities’ are part of our current discussions with Jamaica, for example.”

Closer to home, retired United Nations economist and educator Dr Davidson Daway, a man who ought to know, saw it differently. To Daway, the IMF is of the same philosophical construct as the one of the 1970s. “The IMF has not yet changed, they implement the same attitudes since the 70s. The people who go to the IMF are emerging nations… they put you in a situation where you always have to beg.

“With the IMF situation, having an opportunity to see them operating before, they will bring you to your knees before allowing you what you’re supposed to have. I can honestly say that the IMF is not in anybody’s interest, they have their own interest and they will not change because that is the culture of the IMF.”

What are we supposed to have, Dr Daway, that we did not provide for ourselves?

Since August, when in an unexpected burst of leadership Prime Minister Golding announced “hard times” to come, he has not pronounced on the IMF as beast or best friend. In all honesty I could understand the prime minister presenting the IMF as the only banker available and hence, whether it was friend or extortionist, the judgement was immaterial. But leadership demanded that in crisis times like these, the people cannot be left guessing.

The IMF may not necessarily tell us to cut the size of the 117,000-strong civil service. All it has to say is, “There is too high a cost attached to the cost of government.” To date and in-between sporadic shows of leadership from Prime Minister Golding, we have not been told when the retrenchment will begin. So we are forced to ask if the wage freeze is a prelude to across-the-board pay cuts as a way of saving jobs, that is, if the government has awakened to the idea of alternatives?

Meanwhile, in our “winner-takes-all” politics, the Opposition PNP shows up in Parliament in an unofficial sitting on Tuesday to play its usual game of politics. Of course, it knows that JLP as a name is now only mentioned when disgust enters a conversation. So, what can the PNP do? Will its antics save one job in the civil service? Will its political showmanship provide one more dollar to put in the pocket of a worker made redundant?

No, it will not, but it is the same old politics, over and over again because it knows nothing else. On the other hand, the JLP administration is increasingly finding itself on the defensive because, incredibly, it has only recently fully captured the urgencies of the time. Successive governments in Jamaica have never been fully equipped to handle crises, simply because they have always been in the business of handing out taxpayers’ money as favours to themselves and their friends.

As the money dries up, so too does what is left of the brainpower of politicians. The fact is, this country has an elected leader in Golding and he must rise up and tell us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If we have to suck salt, as it appears we have begun to in the prelude to a new IMF engagement, we are demanding that Prime Minister Golding give us the real bad news first-hand and let us stop the guesswork.

What more is there to come, PM?

observemark@gmail.com