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Publicado por Jamaica Observer  el Viernes, 27 de Enero del 2012
JAMAICA: Shaw slams Phillips for IMF comments
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FORMER Finance Minister Audley Shaw yesterday blasted his successor Dr Peter Phillips for implying that relations had soured between the previous Government and multilateral lending institutions.The fact, Shaw argued, is that the previous administration had a 95 per cent compliance rate with performance measures set by its multilateral partners, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, European Union (EU), Inter−American Development Bank (IDB) and Caribbean Development Bank. The former minister was making a keynote address at the Jamaica Stock Exchange?s 7th Regional Capital Markets Conference at the Jamaica Pegasus Hotel in Kingston.?When the present minister, Dr Phillips, speaks about trust having been broken down with the multilateral institutions, it could not be further from the truth,? said Shaw, now Opposition spokesman on finance.?Ninety−five out of 100 objectives were accomplished. The few that were not accomplished were the ones that became the sticking points, so to speak, in the reviews that would be carried out by the International Monetary Fund,? he declared.Phillips said last week that the current IMF programme, which is scheduled to expire in May 2012, has not been completed because various critical structural benchmarks and targets were delayed or missed by the previous administration. He argued that failure to successfully complete the Stand−by Arrangement had resulted in the nondisbursement of multilateral funding, including US$220 million from the IDB.But Shaw hit back at Phillips yesterday, and, in an attempt to debunk the suggestion that multilaterals were withholding funds, he highlighted that US$318 million was sourced from the World Bank and IDB over the two months leading to when he demitted office.?Between the IDB and World Bank, US$318 million were garnered between October and November this year. So to suggest that there was a breakdown of trust between the previous Government is wrong and it is a most unfortunate comment for Dr Phillips to make,? said Shaw.Shaw said what?s more is that the current minister will have to grapple like he did with the major ?sticking points? in the IMF agreement of tax, pension and public sector reform. He revealed that the IMF reviews were incomplete because, due to the global economic challenges, the Government had to recast all its projections set for the medium term going into 2016.?You cannot recast the programme and establish a credible fiscal path unless you know how you are treating with tax reform… with pension reform… the consequences of public sector reform and the posture of the trade union and their willingness for wage restraint in the medium term,? Shaw told the audience.?These were all issues that were ongoing and any attempt by the minister to suggest that there was fiscal irresponsibility or negligence on my part is to be rejected outright,? he reiterated.In an apparent warning shot ahead of Phillips? visit to Washington, DC next month to discuss negotiating a new IMF deal, Shaw said: ?There are lessons that he will learn. What I was battling with, he will now have to battle with because unless you can deal with those issues you will not have a credible fiscal path into the mediumterm economic programme, and if you don?t have that you cannot have an IMF agreement.?Shaw also accused the former People?s National Party Government ? which lost power to Shaw?s Jamaica Labour Party in 2007 ? of fiscal irresponsibility in borrowing at high interest rates from the international capital markets. He credited his administration with reengaging the multilaterals and borrowing at low interest rates when he became finance minister in 2007.?Despite the challenges with the IMF subsequently, not only did we have a debt exchange but we have been able to borrow over US$3 billion from our combined partners… Most of that has come into Jamaica at less than two per cent interest rate,? said Shaw.?Stop saying that trust has broken down, Dr Phillips, because when I became minister, trust did not exist at all.?


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