Fayval Williams opened her national budget innings as Jamaica’s first female finance minister on Tuesday listing a raft of incentives for consumers and businesses in what she labelled a “good news” budget that is fiscally responsible.

Among the benefits are a $1-billion subsidy to assist the first 20,000 customers who sign up with Jamaica Public Service Company for prepaid electricity; a reduction in the income tax threshold to $2 million over the next three years; an 80 per cent cut in bond on duties for new car dealers; as well as longer repayment period on student loans.

Williams said that for the first time in 10 years, based on fiscal rules, the Government could have run a deficit equivalent to “no more than 0.3 per cent of GDP, and that would still keep us on the path to 60 per cent debt-to-GDP by fiscal year 2027/28”.

However, she and Prime Minister Dr Andrew Holness decided against doing so as it would send “a very bad signal to the world in an election year”.

“There is no greater testimony to the high regard that this Government has for the fiscal affairs of this country and, by extension, the people of Jamaica than for Jamaicans to know that this Government has stared a budget deficit in the face that we legitimately could have run in an election year and said ‘No, thank you!’ We want to preserve the hard-won gains of the people of Jamaica and their children and grandchildren so they will not have to suck salt through wooden spoon again,” she said.

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