Last week Minister of Finance Christopher Sinckler confirmed that his 2013 budget contained errors of a “typographical” nature and ended speculation about the interpretation of two provisions.
His comments were bitter sweet, since he confirmed the other provision which essentially means his cabinet colleague Donville Inniss was apparently also misled. As one who is regularly engaged in the preparation of documents, I am familiar with the “printer’s devil” and “typographical errors” and would therefore be willing to forgive our minister for being “human”. At the same time; however this most recent incident is being viewed against the background of a growing list of peculiar events that have characterized this Minister’s sojourn.
Several of us have been quick to negatively assess his competence; however I think it necessary to examine the totality of political circumstances which Sinckler and this government face. As much as I have no desire to be an apologist for Sinckler and furthermore believe that many things could be done differently, an appreciation of these circumstances does help to enhance the understanding of our environment.
This political era is one of structural adjustment and it is therefore necessary to compare the Sinckler/Stuart approach to that of Adams and Sandiford and moreover note that comparisons with Barrow are irrelevant. Those familiar with our history would recall that Barrow often boasted about his capacity to pay our entire public debt with a single cheque.
This implied that Adams was our first leader who accumulated sufficient debt to contemplate structural adjustment. Analysts often condemned Adams approach to budgeting; however his approach was consistent with modern economic management techniques which justify a manageable debt.
As such Barrow’s only economic challenge was the energy crisis which upon reflection was relatively minor. Adams was first to approach structural adjustment and he tackled it by getting the election out of the way and thereafter approaching the IMF. Adams was criticized for not being frank with us; however the fact that both Sandiford and Sinckler/Stuart have effectively done the same thing suggests that he was being prudent.
Adams’ approach to the IMF was in reality not as bad as it sounded since our arrangement was akin to “IMF lite” and was free of the harshness experienced by Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. The BLP ultimately paid the ultimate price but it could be argued that his programme worked and moreover his government did not collapse during the programme’s implementation.
Years later, Sandiford approached a similar crisis post-election and his handling was somewhat similar in that he did not seek public agreement to approach the IMF. His programme appeared more harsh, but his economic medicine worked and Sandiford could perhaps have survived, but his government collapsed on account of “domestic” issues unrelated to adjustment.
On all three occasions there were/are striking similarities and one major difference. It is striking that the gravity of the economic situation did not differ significantly, if this is measured by the size of the deficit that government sought to finance. As such this historic $400 million deficit needs to be viewed in the context of the size of our economy along with the type of deficits that are fashionable today.
The tools employed on each occasion were/are also similar since each Minister cut public spending by trimming the public service and also imposed higher taxation by various means. The fact that Sandiford cut public service salaries was novel, compared to Adams, but it must also be remembered that Sandiford’s challenges were greater. In both instances the political strategy was similar since the economic pain was “front loaded”.
The major difference between those two and this present scenario is that on the previous two occasions the package was introduced by a Prime Minister who was also Minister of Finance and Minister of the Public Service. This meant that the ministry of finance had the capacity to control government’s expenditure and income directly. The ministry could cut public service salaries as Sandiford did or trim it as Adams did.
Currently, this ministry has a triple challenge, in that he promised not to cut the public service, he is constitutionally prevented from reducing public servants’ salaries and he is not minister responsible for the public service and therefore cannot send home anyone even if he wanted to. It is therefore not surprising that we are seeing the spectacle of a Minister outlining a programme which already appears to have been modified by statements of the PM.
This peculiar arrangement is further complicated by the political reality of this Government’s vulnerability. The administration will amble on until more of its MPs become pensionable, but in the meantime we should not expect greater certainly since such is the nature of these political circumstances.
• Peter W. Wickham ([email protected]) is a political consultant and a director of Caribbean Development Research Services (CADRES).
