THE current anxiety and scramble for survival among non-governmental organisations here in the wake of the American Government’s decision to shutter the United States Agency for International Development bring to the fore a point we have repeatedly made in these columns over many years: We need to run our country in a manner that does not require us to go cap in hand to other nations and international aid organisations.

In fact, just last Friday we reiterated that argument in our discussion on the 90-day freeze on US aid programmes globally announced immediately after President Donald Trump took office for a second term on January 20, 2025.

Our point was that the aid freeze — which appears to fly in the face of previous US policy to woo and win friends primarily using socio-economic assistance and cooperation — plus Mr Trump’s threat of trade tariffs as a potential economic weapon should motivate all countries, especially those most vulnerable, including Jamaica and its Caribbean neighbours, to strive by might and main for economic independence using all available tools.

Give him his due, Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness has been making the same point for much of the past six years. Our recollection is that at least on two occasions last November — at a stakeholders’ engagement at the soon-to-be-open Morant Bay Urban Centre and during his policy address to the nation at Jamaica House — Mr Holness again highlighted this need for economic independence.

Real sovereignty, he argued, can only be achieved with economic strength and resilience. As such, Jamaica must be driven by its own resources and initiative in order to shed dependence on borrowing, foreign aid, and debt.

No Jamaican who really loves this country would disagree with those sentiments. And those of us who lived through the hardships that dogged this country from the 1970s onwards can appreciate the economic turnaround we saw at the tail end of the last Administration and which mushroomed under the present Government.

The task facing us is to build on the performance that has placed us where we are today. It is no secret that fiscal prudence must be maintained, even as the Government responds to pressing social and infrastructural needs as well as human capital development, while giving heavy focus to increasing productivity and growth.

With the general election looming, we are wary of the fact that politicians, as is their nature, will do all in their power to win. And while we encourage vigorous and peaceful campaigning, we must emphasise the importance of not eroding the foundation of the house just to secure occupancy.

Against that background we will hold the prime minister to his word during his policy address in which he outlined the Administration’s pivot from economic stability to growth.

“Let me be clear,” he said, “moving on to the next chapter does not in any way mean that we are going to abandon fiscal prudence. We will never go back to the days of ‘run wid it’ — not under my watch. We have worked too hard and sacrificed too much as a country to ever go back to that. Good fiscal management and macroeconomic stability are now ‘business as usual’ for my Administration.”

That should be the focus of everyone in the political class at all levels — central and local.