KINGSTON, Jamaica – Judging from last Sunday evening's hunky-dory speech by Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller, our Government may not have noticed that Jamaica is hanging precariously over, according to the American coinage, a fiscal cliff.
Or, the PM has deliberately chosen to ignore the reality and sell Jamaicans a false sense of security. In the absence of ignorance of the facts, that can be the only explanation of the prime minister's failure to engage Jamaicans frankly on the difficult choices facing the country.
It is widely known that Jamaica has a debt of more than J$1.6 trillion – and rising. Each year, the Government allocates around 60 per cent of its Budget to pay the principal and interest of this debt. Indeed, all the money the Government collects in taxes and grants is barely sufficient to service the debt, with a little left over to contribute less than a fifth of the salaries of public-sector workers.
