While Jamaica waits on the current review of our economic performance by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), it is useful to look at certain myths skilfully propagated by the Fund that the targets and quantitative performance criteria are designed by the borrowing government.

This became a necessary propaganda exercise because the IMF had been justifiably and critically evaluated for disregarding the sovereignty of governments by imposing targets and performance criteria on the ones too desperate to resist, in exchange for its vaunted seal of approval.

To fend off its critics, the IMF no longer dictates to governments but simply waits for them to propose what it requires of them. This technique was developed by the Washington-based lending agency so that it can claim that the IMF programme was designed by the borrowing government.

That myth also serves the purpose of putting the blame on the borrowing government if the targets are not accomplished or the performance criteria and conditionalities are not met.

It is possible to meet all the performance criteria but not achieve the targets, for example, passing all the tests but not producing economic growth or reduced inflation or a stable exchange rate. The IMF would simply point out that the performance criteria were poorly designed by the government and claim that it, the Fund, was not to blame.

A more common and more serious scenario is that the borrowing government fails to meet the performance criteria. This could be due to exogenous factors which could not reasonably be foreseen eg oil price increases, natural disasters, civil war and the like. In this case, nobody is to be blamed and the programme is reviewed to include recalibrated targets and performance criteria.

If there were no exogenous factors then the IMF points to the failure of the borrowing government to execute the programme properly, in which case, even more draconian criteria will be required to attain the same targets in the original time period. The IMF’s rationale for this attitude is that adjustment must take place in the shortest possible time and that the recalcitrant government must be made to do the right thing.

The IMF feels entitled to adopt this approach because it regards the government that fails tests as not having the political will to stick to the programme which it supposedly designed. The lack of appreciation by the IMF of why the performance criteria were not fulfilled amounts to an irresponsible disregard for what we recently called in this space the social and political limits of economic austerity.

The reality is that the targets and performance criteria are designed by the IMF by its senior officers in Washington DC. It is our view that if these target and performance criteria are not achieved, the Fund cannot escape its responsibility, unless there were exogenous factors. It is absurd for the IMF not to admit its culpability in designing and imposing unrealistic targets and performance criteria and pretend that all problems emanate from the borrowing government’s lack of commitment to doing the right thing.

The appropriate action by the IMF is to admit its fallibility in designing the programme and recalibrate the targets, performance criteria and the duration of the programme.

Such recalibration must be guided by the principle that the continuity of stabilisation and adjustment is more important than the speed and severity of adjustment.