THIS DAY IN OUR PAST
The following events took place on May 27 in the years identified:
1985: Two hundred Isuzu minibuses, to bring the Kingston metropolitan transport system back on its feet, still remain parked in the Corporate Area, after 10 months. Efforts by the Jamaica Mini-bus Association (JMBA) to bring part of that stock on the road as a start fall flat. Red tape, they say, reaches them again. However, clearance of the minibuses should start on May 28 after all necessary requirements to the relevant authorities are met, authorities say. Scores of JMBA members, including owners, conductors and other interested parties, gather at Robinson’s Garage on South Camp Road, where 81 of the vehicles are stored, in anticipation. They are hoping that having met the criteria of the banks, government and other authorities, at least 13 buses will be released. But this is not to be. Jamaica Omnibus Service, government-owned after it is acquired from foreign entrepreneurs, has been losing money and offered local enterprise a takeover. A JMBA spokesman reminds that when the minibuses come into their own, it is their understanding it can be on a leasing company basis, but they were afterwards told to go to commercial banks for financing, which they did.
1997: Leading US investment house Merrill Lynch rates Jamaica’s economic prospects on par with other emerging markets in the region, such as Panama, Mexico, Venezuela and El Salvador. Alicia Duran, one of two Merrill Lynch analysts who will be monitoring the country’s progress in the future, says that Jamaica’s credit rating is equal to that of other emerging markets. In a document put out by the Merrill Lynch’s emerging markets team on May 5, 1997, Jamaica was given a “high single B or low double B rating”. By international standards, that means the country’s economic risk profile is speculative like most emerging market debt with a vulnerability to default on debt repayments, but with ample capacity to meet current interest and principal repayments. The Ministry of Finance is unavailable for comment.
– The Gleaner Archives