Opposition Leader Mark Golding yesterday accused the Government of a “tight embrace with fiscal conservatism” in its proposed 2021/22 expenditure budget.

Golding, who was making his maiden contribution to the budget debate as leader of the Opposition since his elevation to the leadership of the People’s National Party (PNP) last November, also took a swipe at the Government’s handling of the novel coronavirus pandemic and crime.

He said the annual budget had given the Government an opportunity to change priorities and adjust policies for the benefit of the wider society.

“This is when the Government should alter its direction if experience and data show that their approach is failing to meet the needs of the people. At this time of crisis, people must be the priority. People must be at the centre of policy. However, in the face of the deep economic and social crisis, the response of the Government, in my view, has been to continue its tight embrace of fiscal conservatism,” Golding said in what was largely an echo of the presentation made by his finance spokesman Julian Robinson last week.

Fiscal conservatism is a political and economic philosophy that advocates low taxes, reduced government spending, and minimal government debt.

Golding also confirmed his approval of Robinson’s proposal for Finance Minister Dr Nigel Clarke to add $21.5 billion to the Government’s $831-billion budget to accommodate more social programmes for the vulnerable.

He said that, with a devastating crisis facing Jamaicans, the budget was a “timid and inadequate” response.

He told the House of Representatives that the budget only makes provision for $8 billion in direct COVID-19-related social support for vulnerable Jamaicans and argued that this was half of the amount provided in 2020/21 which, itself, proved to be far too little.

“This budget does not do right by the Jamaican people, especially the poor, those earning low wages, the unemployed, and elders struggling to survive on the meagre NIS (National Insurance Scheme) pension that has not been increased since 2018. And it is not just individuals who are struggling. Service industries, especially tourism, entertainment, transport, and sports have been hit badly,” he insisted.

Golding also suggested that it was “bad policy decisions” by the Government which allowed COVID-19 to get out of control in Jamaica and that it now threatens the country’s way of life and very existence.

“Irrespective of what the minister of health and wellness says, the reality is that our number of daily confirmed cases has been hitting unprecedented levels, week after week. The health system is now reeling under the pressure. Hospitals are bursting at the seams and many patients have not been able to find beds,” Golding said.

He suggested that the only hope for getting out of the crisis was through a comprehensive vaccination programme to achieve herd immunity as quickly as possible.

He said that this means vaccinating about 70 per cent of the population, or about 2,000,000 adults, under the programme.

Golding also accused the Government of being “tardy” in initiating the process of sourcing vaccines.

“Nothing was done to seek bilateral arrangements with suppliers until mid-January, after I and others reacted with alarm to the minister’s announcement that the Government’s target was to vaccinate a mere 16 per cent of the population in the first year,” he stated.

Turning to crime, Golding said that the Government’s “terrible record of performance” was remarkable, given the extraordinary powers provided to the security forces between 2017 and 2020 under the states of emergency, and the vastly increased resources available to national security due to the success of the Government’s fiscal programme.

“Our belief is that adequate resources through social investment for crime prevention are central to any efforts for sustained violence reduction,” Golding said.

He stated that Jamaica’s best hope is to tackle the major root causes of violent crime in a systemic way, while also properly equipping the security forces and the justice system with the tools, technology and human resources needed to carry out their work.

“We cannot be successful doing one without the other,” he argued, noting that the PNP has remained committed to a balanced approach with well-designed preventive measures.

He listed these measure as training and deployment of violence interrupters under the Peace Management Initiative; restorative justice actively promoted by the Ministry of Justice and used extensively in the justice system; school-wide positive behavioural intervention support through the Ministry of Education; specific interventions aimed at keeping youth in school, and post-secondary employability training; positive parenting to mitigate against children adopting criminal behaviour; and incarceration being used primarily as an opportunity for rehabilitation, rather than only for punishment.

He said the Government’s plan to resume the COVID-19 Allocation of Resources for Employees (CARE) Programme in April, after it was launched last year, was its primary response to the socio-economic crisis. However, he noted that it provided less than one per cent of gross domestic product in direct assistance to vulnerable Jamaicans and businesses.

He said that the pre-COVID-19 unemployed received a single payment of $10,000, over eight months ago. And, as regards businesses, the Government chose to make formalisation a condition of accessing assistance. This approach effectively ensured that many micro/small business owners were unable to access any assistance under the CARE Programme, he claimed.

“This outcome was entirely predictable, given the high level of informality in the Jamaican economy, and, what is more, many people who qualified and applied for assistance under the CARE Programme are yet to receive it,” he told the House.

He said that in the tourism sector, there are hotel workers and craft vendors who have not been paid the assistance for which they applied. Similarly, small hotels have been unable to access the financing that they were told was to be provided for them by the ExIm Bank, and in the transport sector it is the same story.

The debate continues on Thursday with the presentation from Prime Minister Andrew Holness.