KINGSTON, Jamaica – Recalling the economic hardships which resulted from the Financial Sector Adjustment Company (Finsac) fallout, Prime Minister Andrew Holness says he “shudders to think” what will happen to Jamaica if history were to repeat itself.

Finsac was registered in January 1997 with a mandate to restore stability to Jamaica’s financial institutions. Critics have since expressed that instead of bringing stability, Finsac’s efforts largely led to a wipeout and “fire sale” to overseas investors.

It is reported that the Finsac debacle cost the Jamaican economy approximately $120 billion or about 40 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP).

Outlining that his administration has worked tirelessly to correct some of the economic disasters created by Finsac, Holness said a financial relapse would be detrimental to the country’s economy.

“I am fearful of what will happen if stable hands were to come off the wheel, to put novice hands on the wheel. I want you to appreciate that when I tell you that I shudder to think what could happen, it is because I lived through Finsac and I saw people suffering as a result,” he said while speaking at a Young Jamaica General Meeting at the University of the West Indies on Wednesday night. “I saw what happened, how the entrepreneurial class was totally destroyed not only by bad economic policies related to how banks were regulated, but it was also destroyed because it created a false notion that investing in government paper wasn’t really investing. It created what I call a lazy set of entrepreneurs and it is now that lazy set of entrepreneurs who want to come and run the country.”

“We must never allow that notion to return in our country because right now, this government, this administration, has properly established what it means to be an entrepreneur and create wealth,” he continued.

Passionately recalling the pains of Finsac, the prime minister urged today’s generation not to be blindsided by the few who he said benefitted from the crisis.

“People who are talking now, people who are seeking to lead the country now, they benefitted, became millionaires and billionaires on the backs of the people…one of their own MPs described it as the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich,” he said. “I have no doubt that is what they want to come back to do to the Jamaican economy, to come and get wealthy on the backs of the poor. I will not allow that to happen and I hope that my voice is carrying.”

Holness said that while Jamaica is not where it needs to be financially, the nation has made significant progress under his administration. Highlighting that the unemployment rate has declined from 13 per cent to four per cent during his leadership, Holness said the country is on a path of “promise and progress and there is prosperity.”

“There is no mystery as to why it is that as the Jamaica Labour Party came in the unemployment moved from as high as 13 per cent to now four per cent. You know why,” he questioned. “It’s because investors now have to do real investment that employs people and government borrowing is not crowding out real investment. These are some of the fundamental changes that have happened in our country. I am determined to ensure that we don’t fall into the rut we fell in when the country was destroyed in the 70s, rebuilt in the 80s and then for 18 1/2 years we fell into a lull.”