Having worked closely with Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller in the area of communication when she was minister of labour and social security, I have no doubt that she has a genuine concern for the poor. She herself coming from a humble background, her commitment to the poor is unchallengeable. But like most politicians she makes promises in election campaigns that are hard to fulfil. One such promise made in the last election campaign was that if elected she would save the poor from their miserable life. But, in fact, some items commonly used by the poor were removed from tax exemption in the recent budget exercise.

As the saying goes, it takes cash to care, and the government right now is short of cash. In fact, the country’s debt is $1.7 trillion which is 130 per cent of the value of the goods and services the country produced last year (GDP), according to the government. This is 10 per cent lower than the International Monetary Fund’s figure which is 140 per cent. What is worse, government has to use 54 per cent as what it takes in as revenue and loans to service the debt. The IMF warns that the debt to GDP ratio could climb to 150 per cent, or higher, in the medium term, if the government fails to push through tough fiscal reforms.

Certainly, government is not earning enough to incur such high debt, and that is what is worrying the IMF and other multilateral financial institutions. As a result, loans from them have been held up. It reminds me of my early years as a public servant when my expenses and my salary were nearly at the same level. My bank would not lend me any more money. The credit manager told me I would have to increase my income. “Not a cent more,” she said bluntly. My son and daughter were at university. As I regarded education as second to religion, I could not give up. I had not only to increase my income by additional odd jobs, but also had to stick to the bare essentials. Like I did, government will have increased its income-earning capacity through additional taxes from growth to survive. The problem is that there was very little stimulus in the budget for growth.

The truth is that the government does not have the cash to take care of the poor in the way it should, and there are so many of them who need help who are unable to help themselves. So government has to increase taxes and borrow less, spend less in certain areas, but certainly not on education, health and security as it is doing this year. It also has to create a smaller government and public service. Because of the crisis, public servants should not expect any wage increase for the next two years.

Frankly, the country has to stop living beyond its means and on other people’s money. We have to create our own resources and we have to use those resources well. We have to apply a high standard of productivity in the foods and services we produce. At present, Jamaica’s level of productivity is among the lowest in the world, and it is time employers, unions and the government get together and take steps to improve it. In opening his budget speech, Opposition spokesman on finance, Audley Shaw, had it right when he said: “Our workers at all levels in both the public and private sectors need to develop a keen understanding of the need to maximise their productivity in everything they do. The cry cannot be always about salary increases, it has to be about increased productivity and output at the workplace.”

Above all, we have to get rid of corruption which is eating out the vitals the nation.

The government plans to reduce the debt from 130 per cent to at least 100 per cent of the GDP over the next three years. But why not put a cap on the debt and live off our own resources as some people have been asking. I posed the question to Dr Peter Phillips at a Jamaica House press conference last week. He said that the government, as a first step, proposes to have greater transparency in Parliament on the debt. “We propose a mid-year report to the Public Administration and Appropriation Committee. We want to find out if the debt is being maintained on a downward path. The issue of putting a cap on the debt is something we have to examine: get people to understand how the debt is hurting us. It requires more discussion and to be kept under constant review. Our contribution to future generations is to ensure that where debt is concerned we will never walk that way again as a country.”

The PNP government for some years had stopped borrowing from the IMF, but it was difficult to get loans from the other multilateral financial institutions because when the IMF lends a country money it is a signal of approval for multilaterals to do similarly. They watch what the IMF is doing.

Much of Jamaica’s recovery from its present financial and economic crisis depends on increased taxes, more production and increased productivity and exports, holding down the debt as well as wages in the public service, borrowing less, and spending less, and balancing the budget. That is the only way out of the crisis. Any politician who tells you otherwise is not telling the truth.

One reader asked me to put the following question to Dr Phillips: Could not the government spread the tax increases over two years to make it less burdensome on people? His response was that the IMF and multilateralss felt that we had to make a sharp adjustment because of the sharp rise of the debt. There had been considerable slippage in the programme which the previous government had agreed with the IMF. “Make no mistake about it. We are paying the consequences of allowing the debt to rise to the extent it did,” he added.

Greater sacrifice will be required. The tax package which was passed by Parliament last week should be regarded as stop-gap measures. Real tax reform is inevitable.