IT WAS predictable that Jamaica's huge budget deficit would result, directly or indirectly, in an increase in the rate of inflation and a shortage of cash for the day-to-day running of the government. There is now emerging clear evidence that these two factors are making their impact felt with unhappy repercussions for the man in the street. Shortly, it will cost him 50 per cent more to take a bus to work and this in turn will cause taxi fares to go up. Water to quench his thirst in the current summer heat is scheduled to cost more and many of the items he buys to maintain some quality of life will now attract General Consumption Tax. If he is lucky at the lottery, his winnings will be taxed.
All this has a domino effect in pushing up inflation and Dr. Omar Davies, Minister of Finance and Planning, has already publicly confessed that the budget inflation target of 7 per cent will not be met and is likely to be in double digits for fiscal year 2003/2004. Confession may be good for the soul but it has been almost pitiful to hear Police Commissioner Francis Forbes, admit that the current crime plan has failed and that murder rates are likely to go up rather than come down. And Superintendent Claude Samuels has expressed his disappointment that government entities which promised to implement social programmes to help tackle crime have failed to follow through, another casualty of the cash shortage.
The public is perhaps less aware of how the Government's cash-flow bind is affecting the police force in other areas. It appears that government has not been able to come up with $40 million needed to buy new police vehicles and to repair old ones, many of them wrecked because of dangerous and irresponsible police driving. This has affected the mobility of the police in their efforts to combat crime. The current fleet of police vehicles is reported to be 1,250, many of them over nine years old. The High Command wants the fleet increased to 1,500 vehicles but the funds for this are not available.
Signs of the cash bind as it affects law and order are evident in St. James where the patrolling capabilities of the marine police division are severely hampered because the one boat assigned to it is malfunctioning and there are no funds to replace it. This must be good news for the drug traffickers who are flooding the western section of the island with cocaine.
The public which sees the cost of living and maintenance of law and order as its two main concerns and the prime responsibilities of government is not likely to accept lack of resources as an excuse for what is happening, especially in light of ongoing government extravagances for which there have been no apologies or belt-tightening. Is it possible that things will get worse before they get better.
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