IMF conditionalities will be transferred to SBA
SOME OF the conditionalities under the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Extended Fund Facility (EFF) with Jamaica will be transferred to the standby agreement (SBA), the successor programme which the Government has agreed with the United States-based organisation.
Among those are the primary surplus of seven per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), the debt-to GDP targets of 96 per cent by the end of fiscal year 2019-20 and 60 per cent or less by fiscal year 2025-26, as well as the wage-to-GDP of nine per cent by 2018-19, according to State Minister for Finance and the Public Service, Fayval Williams.
She said Jamaica is expected to end fiscal year 2016/17 with the wage-to-GDP ratio at about 9.6 per cent.
Referring to the targets and objectives under the SBA, Williams, who was assigned responsibility for ensuring the IMF programme remains on track, also said “we have to do that while we are transforming the public sector to be more efficient and delivery focused”.
ON EDGE
Public-sector workers have been on edge about job losses under the public-sector transformation programme, a situation Prime Minister Andrew Holness hinted at recently.
Addressing a forum at the University of the West Indies last week on expectations of publicsector workers after March 2017, the state minister cited examples itself out of somewhere in the region of $2.5 billion in revenues.
Williams said that although she did not know the numbers, “I would wager a bet that at the RGD today there are more persons employed than it did back in the 1970s,ecause it has expanded the range of services and opportunities.”
She added: “And that is the message that we would like for the public sector to embrace when we talk about modernization (and) increasing efficiency.”