Renege On This Promise And The Party Is Done.…

On March 17^th I wrote that the new Administration in Kingston should have a comprehensive Audit of each ministry and release it’s findings as quickly as possible. It’s important that the true state of the Jamaican economy be made known as quickly as possible , because the longer it takes to do so the less credible it’s report will be and the administration will invariable own the PNP’s foul-ups.

NEW GOVERNMENT BETTER TELL THE JAMAICAN PEOPLE THE TRUE STATE OF AFFAIRS AND QUICK…

At the time I wrote the Article it was a full 20 – 21 days after the Elections of February 25^th. Today more than a full month after the elec­tions the Jamaica Observer reports that the Administration is now say­ing that the out­go­ing PNP admin­is­tra­tion used up funds ear­marked to finance $1.5‑m tax break promised by the JLP dur­ing the campaign.
In that arti­cle I cau­tioned the new admin­is­tra­tion to quick­ly tell the nation whether alle­ga­tions that out­go­ing mem­bers of gov­ern­ment had gone on a spend­ing spree was cor­rect. I also asked that the new admin­is­tra­tion tell the nation whether any laws were broken.

Minister of Finance and Public Service, Audley Shaw, a short while ago dis­closed that funds that should have been set aside from the exist­ing gas tax have already been used up in the con­sol­i­dat­ed funds under the pre­vi­ous People’s National Party (PNP) admin­is­tra­tion. The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), in mak­ing its elec­tion promise to imple­ment a thresh­old of $1.5 mil­lion for Pay as You Earn (PAYE) con­trib­u­tors planned on using an esti­mat­ed $9.5 bil­lion from the gas tax to assist in fund­ing the expect­ed $12.5 bil­lion that the tax plan would cost the coun­try. The dis­clo­sure means that the Government has to insti­tute oth­er plans to fund the loss from the real­lo­ca­tion of rev­enue from the exist­ing gas tax. Shaw is how­ev­er reas­sur­ing the coun­try of the Government’s com­mit­ment to pro­vid­ing the pro­posed tax break to employ­ees. He was speak­ing at the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica (PSOJ) President’s Forum this morn­ing. Shaw said the Government will present new plans to address the issue in the upcom­ing bud­get debate.PNP used up funds ear­marked to finance $1.5‑m tax break – Shaw

Did it take a full month for the new Government to find this infor­ma­tion out?
Does the Administration believe this will be an expla­na­tion which will hold off the tide of expec­ta­tions it cre­at­ed with this cam­paign promise?
I hope for the par­ty’s sake that the min­is­ter do have a bet­ter plan to fund this promise over and beyond that state­ment that it will present a plan in the upcom­ing budget.
Even if those funds were ear­marked men­tal­ly by the JLP while in oppo­si­tion and the monies were spent by the los­ing admin­is­tra­tion it cer­tain­ly could not have been a one-off fund­ing source. Secondly there is no laws which makes it a crime to spend monies on allo­ca­tions and projects dur­ing lame-duck status.

With that in mind the admin­is­tra­tion and the min­is­ter would be best advised to find the mon­ey forth­with to off­set those sav­ings for the peo­ple who qual­i­fy for them.
Explanations no mat­ter how cred­i­ble will not cut it. The peo­ple will have none of it.
This one promise is one the gov­ern­ment can­not renege on. If it does on this par­tic­u­lar promise the time spent in obliv­ion will be a cake-walk when com­pared to where it will find itself in the future. It will be gen­er­a­tions before it gets a chance to enter Jamaica house, if ever again.