Keith Collister, Contributor
A CONFIDENT Omar Davies addressed the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica's Job Creation Awards ceremony to a nearly full house of private sector business leaders at the Terra Nova hotel yesterday morning. The Minister of Finance for the past 12 and a half years had been invited in his capacity as a contender for party leader and therefore, a potential prime minister, as part of the series put on by the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) to the help the country assess the qualities of the prime ministerial candidates.
In a tough question and answer period, the Minister faced some stiff bowling from the three-person panel assigned the task by the PSOJ.
The Minister was asked whether he would be constrained to exercise fiscal restraint as the Minister of Finance on the eve of a potential election, as he apparently had not been able to do with the so-called 2002 "run wid able to do it" budget. He replied that he had already apologised for his choice of words, and that he was facing the same constraints now as in 2002 when he had to retain expenditure levels and work on reconstruction due to weather-related damage. He stated that he may also have to adjust the fiscal targets this year due to a reduction in revenue and an increased need to repair infrastructure. He added later, that one collects about one third of revenue in the last quarter of the fiscal year, and he expected revenue collection to improve going forward.
CORRUPTION
Minister Davies was asked whether he had made the right choice in bringing Mr. Allston Stewart into his campaign. He replied that while Mr. Stewart's role had been purely operational, and was not a problem for the delegates, he may have misjudged the outside view of his choice, although he argued that the media should be cautious about being judge, jury and executioner.
FUNERAL ATTENDANCE
In response to a question as to whether he regretted having atten-ded Willie Haggart's funeral, Minister Davies stated that it was his general policy in these circumstances to ask senior policemen about the constituency leaders in their area. He had not been aware of any negative information before the funeral. He added that in his job, he was privy to a great deal of information about people, and he would be a lonely person if he chose to ostracise everybody about whom he had heard questionable things.
GROWTH
The Minister was asked how much more time he required at the helm to achieve growth in view of the fact that in the 12-year period in which he had been Minister of Finance, growth had averaged less than one per cent per year when the rest of the world was growing rapidly. Minister Davies responded that he did not believe Jamaica's growth figures as our consumption patterns suggested much higher levels of growth. In any case, he preferred to focus on poverty and tax revenue as measures of his performance.
CRIME
In response to a question as to whether he had properly funded the police in the budget, which it was argued had received a cut in real terms, Minister Davies responded that major capital expenditure in the previous year had distorted the comparison. He added that the budget numbers significantly underestimated the resources allocated to the police as they received a percentage of 'official' fines, and a percentage of illicit assets seized.
IS JAMAICA'S DEBT BURDEN SUSTAINABLE?
The Minister argued that Jamaica's debt was sustainable, as the debt-to-GDP ratio was coming down, partially due to higher-than-anticipated inflation. The interest rates at which Jamaica could borrow were actually lower than would be warranted by objective economic indicators because Jamaica had exhibited a very strong commitment to paying its debt. As a consequence, Jamaica had a very high degree of credibility with foreign investors, and he appealed to his audience that it was critical not to shake this confidence. He himself did not worry too much about the debt figures.
PRIME MINISTERIAL CAMPAIGN
In response to an audience question as to how his campaign was going, Minister Davies stated that he was running a different campaign from that of Portia's "mass appeal" or Peter's concentration on the party machinery, e.g. MPs or councillors. His campaign's strategy was to concentrate on the delegates, going house to house to meet the delegates where they lived. As he saw it, a key current developmental issue in Jamaica was many people's view that they can't do anything for themselves. In response, his campaign centred around offering a message of self-reliance designed to build back pride. He was dealing with issues of reconstruction and development by setting up booths with information on how to start a small business or emphasising preventative medical care. He stated that he would prefer to lose with his message that one can better oneself through self-reliance than to win promising what the country cannot afford.
