Last Wednesday, a farewell reception was held in honour of the IMF’s outgoing senior resident representative Dr Gene Leon, whose time in Jamaica ends today. The quality and diversity of the crowd seeing him off, which included politicians, academia, technocrats, diplomats, media, civil society, the church, private sector, as well as representatives of his other multilateral partners, and the warmth of the many speakers saying farewell, stand as a clear testament to his impact over the past three years.

A number of speakers remarked as to how the IMF had for decades been regarded almost as an “ogre” in Jamaica, that being one of the kinder names, after roughly three decades of our being in some sort of IMF programme. Indeed, as our prime minister herself noted in her farewell speech, one of the IMF’s local names in our long relationship has been “It’s Manley’s Fault”, a reference to the controversy at the time when our deceased Prime Minister Michael Manley first began our long IMF relationship in the turbulent 1970s. When the programme ended in 1996 after nearly thirty years, it appeared that there was an extreme reluctance on the part of any government to enter into a new programme despite the then emerging financial crisis in the 1990’s, as such action was regarded almost as a form of political suicide. In this context, the clear regard that the audience held for Dr Leon is somewhat remarkable.

As became clear from their speeches, part of this regard was the keen diplomacy and very effective communication with which Dr Leon had executed his difficult task. As a Caribbean national, from the Island of St Lucia, who had worked in or studied several Caribbean countries before going to the IMF, from the beginning Dr. Leon both understood and exhibited real sympathy with the problems facing an Island like Jamaica. His inclusive use of the word “we”, ready laughing smile, and attentive listening endeared him to his Jamaican audience. As our Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller pointed out in her presentation, he could walk down Jamaica’s streets and not be out of place. As a former Professor, much of his time in Jamaica could aptly be captured in another phrase, “teacher Gene”, reflecting his extremely detailed and complex speeches, which combined a multidimensional overview to our problems, and were not easily captured in media reports. To some, it seemed that he was working towards becoming a modern day Sir Arthur Lewis, who was also from St Lucia.

However, Dr Leon was most effective in his one on one conversations, where he somehow managed to combine a frank truth telling quality with the almost socratic diplomacy of the international technocrat that he was, meaning guiding you to understanding and accepting the solution of the problem that he had just explained, without revealing too much, or deviating from the IMF’s point of view, all while asking the right questions to learn what he could from his subject.

In his own uncharacteristically short comments, Dr Leon said Jamaica can and must do better, and that we needed to adopt an urgent mindset of cultural change across society, business and politics, without going into too much detail as it had already been a long night.

Another part of the regard for Dr Leon may be, as former Prime Minister Edward Seaga noted in his speech, the “new” IMF’s very helpful role in the 2008 crisis, and consequently very high level of support in 2010 reflecting a measurable difference in policy. Seaga rightly observed that he had a deep familiarity with the IMF, having eliminated the mammoth 17.5 per cent fiscal deficit when he came to power in 1980 during the life of his administration. This deficit was before the impact of the reduction of half of Jamaica’s foreign exchange earnings and a third of its tax revenues from the collapse of the bauxite sector in the early 1980’s, at a time when it represented a much bigger part of Jamaica’s economy than during the global crisis of 2008. He noted that the size of the deficit had meant that he was forced to emphasise reducing expenses rather than increasing taxes, and with wages being the main expense, he had to reduce the size of the public sector by 27,000 jobs. He noted that in the last years of his administration, Jamaica again achieved economic growth rates of around five per cent, which they had not achieved since the 1960’s, and have not achieved since. Despite the implication that it was these type of tough decisive measures that had put us back on a path to growth, Seaga said he was happy that a similar measure had not had to be done to satisfy the IMF this time around, because of the very high human cost.

Although he did not exactly say it that evening, Dr Leon also clearly believes Jamaica needs to reform much faster, and to take the kind of decisive measures that lead to growth. He has repeatedly emphasised his concerns about Jamaica’s external competitiveness (his view appears to be that, particularly now, this is much more important than the issue of the fiscal deficit), our dependence on huge amounts of others people’s money, and our need to earn, not borrow, our way out of our current predicament. It must be hoped that our policymakers, perhaps even his own institution, are listening to his implied call for a focus on international competitiveness as job one if we are to avoid a rerun of the movie “Life and debt”. His successor will also have a hard act to follow, particularly as the new IMF programme is much less generous than the one that began in 2010, and at first glance seems closer to the IMF’s reputation of old. In any case, all agreed that Jamaica had been fortunate to have had Dr Leon as our representative. Walk good, Gene.