Prime Minister Andrew Holness, in again defending his Government’s stewardship of the island’s economy, has told his critics: “I can see somebody writing in the comments, ‘Fiscal discipline caan nyam.’ Yes, my friend, fiscal discipline can nyam!”

Holness also boasted that “Jamaica is now considered the poster child of fiscal discipline” and “has earned the praises of international agencies”.

“We are at that steady state now. The last time I spoke with individuals from the World Bank and the IMF [International Monetary Fund] they were giving Jamaica much praise,” Holness told the Diaspora Townhall 2025 put on by the Jamaican High Commission and the honorary consul for Jamaica in Barbados over the weekend.

Addressing would-be critics, the prime minister went on to note the advantages of fiscal discipline: “What are the benefits of fiscal discipline? Well, firstly, because we have built resilience into our fiscal programme, we have buffers, so when Hurricane Beryl [July 2024] struck we didn’t have to borrow, we didn’t borrow a cent, we were able to give over 14,000 hurricane grants — not of $20,000 and $40,000, but grants going up to $400,000 — because we had buffer in our economy,” Holness told the audience.

That fiscal discipline, he argued, has resulted in the stabilising of the Jamaican dollar and the island’s foreign exchange reserves.

“The exchange rate was a big problem a decade ago. A few years ago everybody quarrelled about the instability of the Jamaican dollar, I don’t hear anybody quarreling these days. Our foreign exchange reserve is the highest it has ever been, inflation is about five per cent,” Holness insisted.

“The greater achievement is that for 10 budgets Jamaica will have no new taxes. Never happened before. I hear somebody putting out a Tweet to say, ‘Mi drop inna pothole and a ladder mi haffi teck fi come out a it.’ Yes, my friend, I know, but we are gonna fix that pothole in a sustainable way without taking any more taxes out of your pocket to do it, and that is a major achievement in the long struggle,” Holness said further.

He noted that Jamaica’s fiscal posture has resulted in it earning another positive rating by American credit rating agency Fitch, which last week affirmed Jamaica’s rating at BB- with a positive outlook.

“Rating agencies don’t just look at our financial position, they are an aggregation of a large volume of information about a country and they are usually very good at determining what is happening in a country.

“Jamaica’s BB minus ratings reflect stronger governance than the peer median, what does that mean? That Jamaica’s management is better than countries in its peer group,” Holness said in referring to the entity’s assessment.

“You don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to believe it, but that’s the reality. It says significant progress with debt reduction, a sound fiscal framework, and a strong political commitment to deliver large primary surpluses. That’s the rating agency’s review of Jamaica,” the prime minister pointed out.

In noting that parliamentary elections are due by September 2025, the rating agency said, “There is broad economic policy consensus across the two main political parties. We, therefore, do not expect significant policy deviations, no matter the outcome of the elections,” it stated.