Golding’s hypocrisy

Oct 09, 2008 Editorial

Prime Minister Bruce Golding appears determined to become the modern Jamaica leader who will torpedo the Caribbean integration movement, as did his predecessor Alexander Bustamante to the West Indies Federation back in 1962.

Since he acceded to the prime ministership of his island-state, he has on several occasions used the most intemperate language to describe the actions of other leaders in Caricom, with whom he may disagree.

Such a predilection can only reinforce the centripetal tendencies inherent in even an established institutionalized union of states – witness the present difficulties of the countries in the European Union to deal coherently with their banking crisis – much less our fragile agglomeration of independent states.

Mr Golding’s latest outburst was vented recently in New York, when he was addressing the Jamaica American Association, the day after he had spoken at the annual United Nations General Assembly.

He castigated other leaders (who he pusillanimously did not name) of Caricom for soliciting aid for their country and who, “…go around hat in hand to every capital of the world like panhandlers on the street, telling people how we are the wretched of the earth, we are poor and that we need all sorts of charity, I’m tired of that.”

In his speech, Mr Golding claimed that he was not rejecting the idea of development assistance tout court and, “Developing countries must ensure that their priorities are properly structured.” But he would know that nowadays all “development assistance” comes with “conditionalities” that address his concern.

One then has to wonder how exactly his peers in Caricom have to conduct their negotiations for assistance so as not to be labeled as “panhandlers”. Indeed, the question may even be asked of Mr Golding’s own pleadings.

After all, just the day before, in the same borough of Manhattan, Mr Golding had addressed the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and complained, “In 2001 we (Jamaica) committed ourselves to achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. We are now at the halfway mark and we are behind schedule.

It is time to take stock to see where we are falling behind, who is falling behind and what must be done to make up lost ground.”

As part of what was needed, he noted, “Developed countries must live up to their commitment to devote 0.7% of their GDP to Official Development Assistance. This is a modest amount.

Yet, only five (5) countries have to date done so.” Was this panhandling or was it an example of Mr Golding’s hypocrisy? But Mr Golding did not stop there.

He pleaded: “We call on the international community to devise strategic programmes to address the peculiar needs of middle-income countries with deep pockets of poverty. Because of these factors and our exposure to frequent natural disasters, Jamaica and its CARICOM partners are proposing the international recognition of CARICOM states as a special category of Small Vulnerable and Highly Indebted Middle-Income countries.”

We have to note that the term “Small and Vulnerable States” is a term of art that is applied by the international development agencies to determine the level of concessionary financing to be granted to a country. While countries may be defined as “small”, as Jamaica and Guyana are, only the latter is also defined as “vulnerable” and eligible for aid, for instance, from the International Development Agency.

Was this panhandling or was it an example of Mr Golding’s hypocrisy? Did Caricom authorize him to “panhandle”?

It would appear that Mr Golding may have been irked that after he praised the Economic Partnership Agreement before another group of Jamaican nationals a few days before his outburst, the very next day President Jagdeo lambasted it at the same the UN.

Was it payback time? Mr Golding should remember that when President Jagdeo advised Jamaica at the last Caricom Heads of Government Summit last July about a strategy to lobby G-8 for middle-income debt relief, Mr Golding asserted that he had already broached the topic with Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain.

He boasted that he was going to have a meeting with the latter and the Commonwealth Secretary General in New York when he was up there for the UNGA. Was this panhandling or was it an example of Mr Golding’s hypocrisy?

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Golding’s hypocrisy

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