Must Jamaica sink any further?
published: Sunday | February 8, 2004
Phyllis Thomas, News Editor
FOR THE week ending February 7, 2004 there was news about the respite from the gun violence and murder in Spanish Town which provided little comfort since the root of the problem in the Old Capital remains firmly in place.
The gunmen are underground or have migrated for a while and Spanish Town is still in decay.
The next big news of the week had to do with the company for which former Water and Housing Minister Dr. Karl Blythe is or was director, being sued by the National Housing Development Corporation (NHDC) to recover $307 million arrising out of two loans in 2000, and the meeting between Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe and Commissioner of Police Francis Forbes on the issue of bail for gang members.
STABLE TO NEGATIVE
Come Thursday the 5th, and news that the international rating agency Standard and Poor's (S&P) had pushed Jamaica's credit rating down. The agency said that it lowered its long-term local currency sovereign ratings on the country from a B+ to B and that it revised its outlook on our long-term ratings from stable to negative. Downgrade of the local currency rating, S&P said, reflected the country's growing debt burden. But the Finance Ministry expressed surprise at the ratings and the timing especially after the Government had raised US$100 million from the Bank of Nova Scotia and 200 million euros on the international capital market. The Ministry still believes that the ability to borrow on the international capital market at double digit interest rate is something worthy of acclaim. But we borrow at double digit interest rates because we are seen as a risk, which has not escaped lending or rating agencies.
The Ministry also said that the ratings came against the background of a buoyant tourism product. But wonderful though tourism might be, that is a fickle sector which the simplest disturbance local or international can dismantle. For example, the local crime trend which we have been unable to contain. In fact in Montego Bay, one of our more popular resort towns is plagued by criminal activities including murder. Uneducated Jamaicans, clueless or without regard for the effects of their actions on tourism, are literally in the faces of the tourists with their criminal actions. Look at the incident last month when three men decided to rob, of all the places, the world renowned Dunn's River Falls. But they had a disagreement and decided to shoot it out right there at Dunn's River.
OUT OF THIS CRISIS
S&P's rating is going to make it more expensive for Jamaica to borrow and maybe that's a good thing. Now we will be forced to look at other options aimed at taking us out of this crisis, which data are indicating, have worsened in the last couple of weeks. According to figures from the Ministry of Finance's Web site, as at the end of December the debt was $671.95 billion, rising by $7 billion. At the end of November is was just under $665 billion, having risen by $6 billion that month.
Must Jamaica sink any further before we take the actions necessary to revive the economy? It's almost at rock bottom now.
I am dying to hear something good about this country. And I don't just mean something like a group coming together to help a little old lady in distress; or a man helping someone across the street...we still have good hearts around here. Most of us. I mean Jamaica is part of the global community. Instead, if three men are held in the farthest pole in Europe, involved in child pornography, one of them must be a Jamaican. If people are caught in some other nefarious acts in Germany, you can put your pot on fire that a Jamaican's name will be called among them.
And the economy. Every news about the economy is bad. When something is presented to us as excellence in fiscal management and you say aah! sucking it up like parched earth soak up water, you find out on closer examination, that it is not really something to be happy about. In fact what came across as good news will haunt you in the future. Or, you find out that the "good news" was a mere polishing of the data.
I'm really itching to report something good about the country in this column. Just give me the goods and I'll deliver.
Comments? You can e-mail me at phyllis.thomas@gleanerjm.com
