Recently, word came to us that some US lawmakers had written their president, Barack Obama, asking for a relaxation of some of the terms of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) agreement with Jamaica. Whenever there is some concern about our arrangements with the IMF, we usually run to the same group of bright analysts for comfort and assurance. And their response is usually the same: “The programme is going well. Kudos to Peter Phillips, we need to continue what we are doing and things will get better.” Then, the Economic Programme Oversight Committee (EPOC) is on standby to confirm all of this.

Of course things are going well…for the IMF. We are dutifully making payments and converting our economy to one that provides rich countries which sponsor the IMF with our products at a very cheap rate. To hell with domestic agriculture.

I was, therefore, pleased to observe that Ambassador Byron Blake had joined the discussion with a different point of view. I would like to add my five cents worth by first asking the media to get some responses to these questions from the bright analysts.

Firstly, is there any country that has gone through the IMF experience and experienced growth while IMF conditionalities are in place?

Secondly, how many of the over 50 countries now in the programme are required to perform with a 7.5 primary surplus?

Thirdly, can they cite any country that has managed to grow while public sector workers are governed by a wage freeze for five years, infrastructure is crumbling, the currency is losing its value, and an austerity programme is in place?

In March 2009, the IMF announced a major overhaul of its lending framework, including modernising conditionality, new flexible credit lines. and the Fund’s regular stand-by lending arrangement, doubling access limits on loans, adapting its cost structures for high access and precautionary lending, and redesigning its Exogenous Shocks Facility. Is it that we could not meander our way through these “improved’ conditions or was the IMF less than sincere in its pronouncements?

What this new strategy to beg a ‘bligh’ sounds like is the people asking Lambert to ask Portia to ask Peter to take it easy with us.

I would be more comfortable if — along with or instead of the begging — there was some indication that we were thinking and not just fretting. One of the main areas of disagreement with the IMF is this matter of conditionality.

Now a central feature of IMF activities, this is a mechanism that links financing with policies. From its offices in Washington, the IMF has managed to acquire a growing number of monitoring tools, ignoring the fact that conditionality, using those foreign tools is increasingly difficult to monitor. So what we have is a growing IMF influence in our domestic affairs with their representatives coming here with little more than two Bob Marley CDs and a Bolt bio and telling us how to live our lives. Binding conditions attached to IMF agreements have become more numerous. The mean value of the average number of binding conditions for arrangements grew from 4.23 in the 1952 – 1973 period to 12.42 in the 1996 – 2000 period.

If we could focus on this area of weakness in IMF arrangements, we could lobby the other countries in the programme to address the matter with one voice. Obama would have to listen. When he came here, he said his solution to this very problem was to ‘grow’ the economy. This betrays a basic ignorance of the challenges facing us. Has anything happened to change his position since? Was Chronnixx in the audience? The poor completion record of IMF programmes and the genuine concern about IMF conditionalities globally is sufficient reason to approach President Obama — as a group — to voice these concerns.

It is this growing influence in domestic affairs that has prompted this plan to close 18 schools. It is consistent with IMF conditionalities. It was tried in Eastern Europe where schools and hospitals were scheduled for closure because a primary surplus, much lower than ours, could not be met. But the people took to the streets…and remained there. Their team attempted to carry out an audit of several Greek ministries. But the workers locked them out of the building. We are not like that. Like crabs, we remain in the pot of water content with climbing on each others backs till we are well and truly cooked. What is going to happen to our little girls who must now walk through bush to schools in other communities? How many will go? How many will get there? Has anyone noticed that no mention is made of that crisis in waiting? Because it is an IMF inspired idea and our children’s education and safety is of no concern.

We should not lose sight of the fact that there are two key initiatives under which loans can be written off: The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI).

Glenn Tucker, MBA, is an educator and a sociologist. Send comments to the Observer or glenntucker2011@gmail.com.

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Has any country balanced its obligations to its citizens and IMF conditionalities and experienced growth?