Clarke, Golding wrestle over election promises
THE JAMAICA Labour Party’s (JLP) Dr Nigel Clarke on Thursday night characterised a package of promises made by the People’s National Party (PNP) as desperate, arguing that they have the potential to wreck the economy.
Addressing the national political debate on the economy, Clarke said that the package of election sweeteners being offered by the PNP would cost $100 billion.
However, the figure was disputed by Mark Golding, the PNP’s spokesman on finance, who estimated the cost of the measures at $70 billion.
Clarke estimated the JLP’s recovery plan to be in the region of $30 billion in new expenditure, $25 billion of which would be on capital programmes.
Clarke, the finance minister, said that the PNP’s package represented a “big back of tricks” and labelled Dr Peter Phillips, the PNP president, the “architect of destruction” of the economy.
Golding has sought to set up Phillips as ‘Mr Fix It’, arguing that during the period 2012-2016, it was Phillips, as finance minister, who rescued the country from the brink of economic collapse after the previous JLP administration failed to implement an International Monetary Fund programme it had agreed.
“In 2011, the people of Jamaica turned to the People’s National Party because they knew we would deliver what is needed to save the country,” Golding said.
“The people need the People’s National Party again to face the crisis that we have now.”
Among other things, the PNP has promised to give to 360,000 households a monthly subvention of $4,000 towards their utility bills, a $400,000 grant to 100 households to improve property, and grants to teachers to renovate homes.
Golding said that the party would prioritise these programmes immediately after taking office. He also said that a PNP administration would seek to impose tighter regulation in the foreign exchange market in order to address the depreciation of the Jamaican dollar, which has crossed the J$150 to US$1 mark.
During the debate, Golding admitted that the PNP’s plan to build 130,000 houses over five years was an “aggressive and ambitious target”. Clarke pointed out that the PNP built only 8,000 houses in its last four years compared to 20,000 built by the Holness administration during its four and a half years in power. The finance minister charged that the PNP has no credibility on that score.
5-IN-4 TARGET
And responding to the JLP’s inability to deliver the aspirational target of five per cent economic growth in four years, Clarke said that the Holness administration achieved record low unemployment, decreased poverty rates, and improved tax collection.
“Growth is a means to an end. We have achieved the ends for which our targets have been set,” said Clarke.
“Do we want to grow at a higher rate? Of course we do, and of course we will. But it is undoubtedly the case that we have achieved the ends to which our growth targets have been set.”
Golding brushed aside the argument, saying that Clarke was seeking to excuse a“colossal failure” of the Government, which he says “remains a blot” on its record. He noted that in 2019, growth fell every quarter to zero, ending a period of 20 consecutive quarters of no economic contraction, which, he said, commenced under the last PNP government.