The need of the hour

Feb 14, 2009 Editorial

From reported comments in the press, it would appear that, in preparing the 2009 budget, the Minister of Finance did not consult the representatives of the economic sectors – business and labour — as had long been the tradition. There is much to be commended for a consultative approach, not the least being the possibility that useful ideas which might redound to the benefit of the economy and country could have been floated.

But from the aforementioned comments, it would appear that the suggestions would have been stuck in the same mode as the eventual budget – lacking in imagination, not to mention vision – and clamouring for the tired, recycled concessions for constituencies. We have to do better.

This newspaper has consistently pointed out that, if we are ever to achieve the double-digit growth rates that are necessary for us to even stand a chance to achieve the standard of living of our Caricom neighbours within a decade, all the major players will have to begin marching to a different drummer.

Trade unions will have to tie their incessant demands for increased wages to increases in productivity; business will have to look beyond the greed and opportunism of the short-term turnover and be willing to deploy more assets into the long-term investment opportunities that are crying out to be tapped, and the Government will have to do what it has been elected to do – LEAD. It is the task of Governments to provide incentives to the rest of society – not just business and labour – so as to encourage all of us to put our shoulders to the wheel of national development.

For too long, our Governments have allowed themselves to be led by the nose by the IMF and World Bank legionnaires, brandishing their one-size-fits-all economic nostrums and panaceas. And we hear these regurgitated robotically, budget after budget, ignoring the cruel irony that, in the last two decades of following the pied pipers from the north, and maintaining “macro-economic fundamentals, liberalising our trade and financial regimes while privatising our economy”, we have remained firmly mired in the economic doldrums.

Yet it didn’t rain ever year; sugar didn’t do badly every year, nor did the world economy collapse until two years ago. The only constant has been our anaemic economic performance during that time. To once again follow the old beaten path is to ensure that we will continue to flounder – and, very sadly, this is all that the 2009 budget suggests.

Our Government has before it – in living colour, so to speak, through the magic of 24/7 all-news television – the evidence of Governments of all stripes and ideologies, from the communist Chinese to the capitalist Americans, unveiling various and sundry economic “stimulus” plans, yet we have chosen to merely plod along in a singularly pedestrian fashion.

All the old dogmas have been tossed aside, and shibboleths have been shattered by others in their quest to stimulate growth in the real economies – ultimately the only arena that counts. The US and the EU are frantically not only nationalising their banks, but now offering to pump money into manufacturing entities and other productive enterprises.

The staid, austere Chinese are now opening up credit and pouring money into the hands of consumers – yes, consumers – so as to increase and deepen domestic consumption to offset the drop in exports occasioned by the collapse of their primary markets in the West.

Our budget has now been laid for debate before the National Assembly, which, unlike the other consultations that were disregarded, is statutory and hence mandatory. The representatives of all the people, those on the Opposition benches as well as those with the Government, still have an opportunity to craft a budget more in keeping with the needs of the hour.

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