Gov't not credible on growth plans - Gayle
Published:Monday | April 14, 2014 | 12:00 AM
As Government seeks approval for its proposed budget for the fiscal year, President General of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) Kavan Gayle has challenged its credibility in fashioning a coherent economic growth plan.
"You can't be credible if you ask us to make sacrifices and continue to behave in the same manner by just coming to the workers and the public and saying, 'Tighten your belt'," Gayle told a Gleaner Editors' Forum last week.
"The Government can't just sit and say that we are demanding more of you and expecting more taxes rather than doing the things required to generate growth ... . Up to this point, we have not seen a growth plan with timelines and specific objectives," he added.
Gayle charged that the Government continues to retard elements of the social transformation process by discarding critical recommendations of the Social Transformation Committee, made during the life of the Jamaica Labour Party administration, to which the BITU is affiliated.
"Because of this, we have wasted a lot of time," he complained.
high rentals
Gayle was also critical of the Government for perpetuating the practice of paying high rentals from its depleted coffers to private sector entities instead of refurbishing abandoned state-owned buildings and occupying them.
"It continues to be a high cost to Government," he stressed.
Gayle was, however, tackled by Ralston Hyman, a representative of the Economic Programme Oversight Committee, who asserted that the response from trade unions and other partners to the Government's programme must be constructive.
"The reality is that for 40 years, the economy has grown by 40.8 per cent. We have built up a massive debt burden of 140 per cent of GDP prior to PetroCaribe, and the rest of the world is not going to give us money to deal with that. The game is over," declared Hyman.
"Jamaica will have to live within its means."
Hyman described as a fallacy suggestions that the International Monetary Fund agreement was not part of the growth strategy.
"It is an integral part," he asserted. "When the Government lives within its means and frees up money, it is essential to economic growth through fiscal sustainability."
Gayle, however, cited what he characterised as a recurring decimal at the start of each financial year as the same questions are posited.
"The workers have made valiant sacrifices and they expect a return on that investment," he said. "But there are some things that the Government is going to have to do to create that environment."