Dear Editor,

It is beginning to look like the case has been made for some special consideration to be given to the plight of those pensioners who have been kidnapped and seriously hurt by the Jamaica Debt Exchange programme.

Somewhat ironically, financial institutions, which have been provided with access to relief under the JDX might not indeed need it, or at least not as much as is available to them. The National Commercial Bank gave a most reassuring report on how it will be impacted by the programme, anticipating “greater loan business from a renewed appetite for borrowing that a lower interest rate regime will open up”. And according to Guardian Holdings Limited, “the JDX will have a relatively insignificant impact on the profit and loss statements of GHL’s Jamaican companies”.

Pensioners have no such report to give. Indeed, Professor Marshall Hall paints a most realistically dire picture of the stark and very acute financial bind in which pensioners find themselves. So it must be a great encouragement to pensioners that other influential columnists and commentators in the media have given their support, making the very telling point that the International Monetary Fund, no less, has said that the case for pensioner relief had not been made to that institution during the negotiating process, implying that there was room for consideration and perhaps relief. Most distressing is the apparent cavalier and self-interested approach of financial institutions which abandoned their role as interlocutors for their clients, while assuming an almost dismissive and forlorn attitude after the decisions were eventually taken and the programme launched.

Of some encouragement, post facto though it might be, is indication that at least one financial institution has made strong representations to the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service on behalf of its clients. The financial sector cannot be indifferent to its clients’ case at the risk of losing their trust and confidence.

These efforts need to be intensified if the powers that be are to be convinced to take the pensioners’ case seriously. At least the government ought to give an indication of its position, even in principle, on the merit of the general case for pensioner relief. If it is plausible, how it should be addressed can then be determined at the government’s discretion, in consultation, of course, with the aggrieved parties and the IMF.

The public protestation and appeal should not be ignored.

H Dale Anderson

hdaleanderson@hotmail.com