FORMER Opposition Leader Dr Peter Phillips has called on the island’s two main political parties to collaborate in the interest of Jamaica.

According to Phillips, Jamaica has achieved great things whenever the People’s National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) work together.

“The overarching lesson of our years as an independent nation is the fact that all our great accomplishments have been the result of collective endeavours,” declared Phillips during what is widely expected to be his last contribution to a Sectoral Debate on Tuesday.

Phillips, the outgoing Member of Parliament for St Andrew East Central — which he has represented for 31 years — delivered a near one-hour speech titled ‘Lessons from History’.

He told the House that Jamaica has had solid achievements whenever the Opposition PNP, which he served as president, and the governing JLP, have collaborated.

He cited the transformation of the economy, starting when he was finance minister in the Portia Simpson Miller Administration of 2011-2016; and the creation in 1979 of the internationally acclaimed Electoral Advisory Committee (EAC), now the Electoral Commission of Jamaica (ECJ), as examples of the good things that can happen when there is collaboration between the two main political parties.

But even as he called for unity Phillips took a jab at the JLP for “unilaterally” getting rid of the Office of the Political Ombudsman, and for “abrogating unto itself the authority to create a new parish”.

Phillips also touched on the stalled constitutional reform process without mentioning the current stand-off between the two parties.

Instead, he went back six decades and stated that, “When the terms of the Jamaican Constitution were settled by a committee of this House, the then Premier Norman Manley invited the Leader of the Opposition Sir Alexander Bustamante to travel with him to London where the final agreements regarding the structure and content of the independence constitution were settled jointly.”

He said Manley was told by some he should not have invited Bustamante but he disregarded the advice, preferring to present a united front.

According to Phillips, nothing highlights the positives that Jamaica achieves when the two parties unite more than the efforts to reduce public debt and achieve sustained economic growth — “though a task still not achieved”.

The former PNP president pointed out that Jamaica’s high-debt situation and high poverty levels go all the way back to the early 1970s, beginning with the global economic upheavals stemming from the oil price shocks of 1973 when Jamaica started facing “a problem of large current account deficits in our balance of payments”.

Phillips said this led to the build-up of an unsustainable public debt and led to Jamaica entering into a near-two-decade-long borrowing relationship with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which ran from 1987 until 1995.

During the period, public debt ballooned to in excess of 200 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) between the 1980s and 1990s.

This was brought down to under 80 per cent of GDP in the mid-1990s when the financial sector meltdown took place, and Phillips admitted this led to a ballooning of the debt.

He also noted that Jamaica remains susceptible to external and climate shocks, and pointed to the effects of the “Great Recession” of 2008 on the local economy which forced the then JLP Government into a Stand-by Agreement with the IMF in 2010.

Insisting he was not casting blame, Phillips noted that the programme, which involved a debt exchange, the divestment of loss-making enterprises, fiscal restraint, and public sector wage restraint, was abandoned by the Government by 2011. He said he mentioned what was involved to highlight the success of the subsequent IMF programme he was involved with.

“The fact is that while much has been focused on the contribution of Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller and myself, in my view, we miss the significance of the united national effort that was involved: public sector workers signed up to make the sacrifice; bondholders committed to endure a ‘haircut’ and loss of interest payments (NDX); the general population endured a major tax burden,” said Phillips.

“Those are the more obvious examples of the unity of effort that was involved,” he said.

Phillips also highlighted various organisations that were involved in tackling the economic challenge and stressed that it was “this broad-based national effort, and the consensus that it generated, that underpinned the nation’s acceptance of the programme of economic reform”.

He said that, “While we have achieved some measure of fiscal discipline and balance, we have not managed to secure the growth in incomes and productivity that we need in order to meet the aspirations of the Jamaican people.”

Phillips then stated that, “perhaps the most salutary and inspiring example of our collective efforts is the Electoral Commission of Jamaica”.

“Not only was the culture changed but new institutions were built — a peace agreement in 1989, and the Political Ombudsman Act in 2002. Many hours were spent between the Most Honourable Edward Seaga [then Opposition leader] and myself — on Prime Minister [PJ] Patterson’s instructions — to find an appropriate office holder,” said Phillips.

He noted that it took several months to settle on Bishop Herro Blair, Jamaica’s first political ombudsman.

Continuing, Phillips said: “We established conventions that required that Parliament cede its authority to the ECJ regarding electoral matters, including the determination of parliamentary boundaries.”

He said the result of the establishment of the ECJ included a growing confidence in the electoral system, the virtual elimination of political violence, and an enhanced reputation for Jamaica’s electoral democracy in the international community.

“Against this background of history it must be unwise for one side to unilaterally eliminate the independent Office of the Political Ombudsman,” he declared.

“Already, we can see evidence of a rise in tensions. Even more, it flies in the face of our traditions of governance for one side to abrogate to itself the authority to create a new parish, with scarcely a consultation with the other side — particularly given the implications for electoral matters and the stability of the nation generally,” Phillips continued in a clear reference to the quarrel between the two political parties over the creation of Portmore as Jamaica’s 15th parish, a matter now tied up in court.

Phillips told the House that “we need to learn from our history and our contemporary experience…”

He said building the Jamaican nation requires the application of good governance, principles of accountability, transparency, and integrity.

“But it must also be premised on principles of participation — giving citizens an opportunity to be part of the decision-making process,” declared Phillips.