European Union ambassador, Marco Mazzocchi-Alemanni (right), makes a point to National Water Commission chairman, Russell Hadeed (left), while Water Minister, Dr Horace Chang, turns on a valve to officially open the new Spaldings/Christiana water-supply project on Thursday. - Photo by George Henry

ALSTON, CLARENDON:

The European Union (EU) is preparing budget-support programmes for the Jamaican Government to the tune of over $18 billion, to be spent over the next four years.

This was confirmed on Thursday by EU Ambassador to Jamaica, Marco Mazzocchi-Alemanni, while speaking at the commissioning into service of a new water supply project at Alston in Clarendon.

"We are preparing budget-support programmes for debt reduction, budget-support programmes for crime reduction, budget-support programmes for sugar-sector diversification. And all of this amounts to a total of $18 billion over the next four years," said the ambassador.

Mazzocchi-Alemanni was quick to point out that the funds represent grants to the Government and not loans. He stated that the budget supports are for activities being pursued by the Government and are not based on activities initiated by the European Union.

"There are activities that are on this Government's agenda; we support them. When they get implemented, we verify them and then we disburse money," said the ambassador.

Mazzocchi-Alemanni said Jamaica has gone for over 10 years without new investments. He said the few investments that have taken place over the period were facilitated with borrowed funds. "For the past 10 years, this country has not had an investment capacity because of its extremely high debt ratio. A lot of persons may dispute the figures, but it is certainly more than 130 per cent of dead stock, compared to GDP," contended Mazzocchi-Alemanni.

He added that the total debt of the country was higher than its annual production of wealth and that in budgetary terms, over half of Jamaica's budget was spent on servicing debt.

- George Henry