JAMAICA: PM ATTEMPTS TO RECAPTURE POLITICAL MOMENTUM, GOJ

C O N F I D E N T I A L KINGSTON 000709 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR WHA/CAR (JMACK-WILSON) (RALVARADO)(VDEPIRRO)(WSMITH) WHA/EPSC (MROONEY) (FCORNEILLE) EEB/IFD/OMA WHA/PPC (JGONZALEZ) INR/RES (RWARNER) INR/I (SMCCORMICK) SANTO DOMINGO FOR FCS AND FAS TREASURY FOR ERIN NEPHEW EXPORT IMPORT BANK FOR ANNETTE MARESH USTR FOR KENT SHIGETOMI AMEMBASSY BRIDGETOWN PASS TO AMEMBASSY GRENADA E.O. 12958: DECL: 2019/10/01 TAGS: PGOV PINR PREL ASEC SOCI ECON EFIN IMF IBRD ENRG EINV ETRD, ELAB, KCOR, KCRM, JM, XL SUBJECT: JAMAICA: PM ATTEMPTS TO RECAPTURE POLITICAL MOMENTUM, GOJ RECEIVES MIXED MARKS AFTER TWO YEARS IN OFFICE REF: REF: A. KINGSTON 712; B. 07 KINGSTON 1336; C: KINGSTON 634 ¶D. 08 KINGSTON 884; E. KINGSTON 490; F. KINGSTON 601; G. KINGSTON 581 ¶H. KINGSTON 471; I. KINGSTON 697 CLASSIFIED BY: Isiah Parnell, CDA; REASON: 1.4(B),(D) Summary: ¶1. (SBU) In a much-anticipated pre-dawn address to Parliament, Prime Minister (PM) Bruce Golding called for a "paradigm shift" in the Government of Jamaica (GOJ)'s civil service and government finances. Confronting a moribund economy, unsustainable budget deficits, and a resurgent opposition People's National Party (PNP), the PM attempted to recapture political momentum for his Jamaica Labour Party (JLP)-led government by calling for reductions in public sector employment and the size of the Cabinet as well as tax reform in an effort to reduce the GOJ's burgeoning budget deficit. However, the PNP was quick to denounce the speech for having "very little action content." ¶2. (SBU) Two years after leading his JLP to victory over the PNP, the PM confronts a daunting political landscape. Faced with an economy mired in recession, one of the highest per capita crime rates in the world, a crushing balance of payments burden, potential labor unrest, and a politically-vexing extradition case, Golding nevertheless enjoys respectable levels of support among the Jamaican electorate - and is in fact more popular than his party - as demonstrated by recent public opinion polls. However, the PNP has recently shown signs of resolving its internal divisions (Reftel A) and recent public opinion polls show the PNP with a six point advantage over the JLP. End Summary. "Reflective Soliloquy" or "Paradigm Shift"? -------------- -------------- ¶3. (C) In a much-heralded parliamentary address that was delayed until after midnight on September 30 by a marathon Standing Finance Committee session considering the GOJ's revised supplementary budget figures, Golding called for major civil service modernization which could result in job cuts, a reduction in the size of the Cabinet, reining in the GOJ's spiraling budget deficits, and other reforms in an effort to realize greater administrative efficiencies. However, by prolonging the committee questioning, the PNP succeeded in minimizing the speech's effectiveness by pushing it from prime time until the early morning hours (NOTE: The PM's speech was later replayed on television and radio the evening of September 30. End Note). Furthermore, although the PM's office had promoted the address to the media and the diplomatic community as a game-changing event, its provisions generally failed to live up to the hype. Although Minister of Parliament (MP) and Minister without Portfolio Daryl Vaz described the PM's speech to Emboff as "honest and strident, but not the bearer of good news," Peter Bunting, JLP MP and PNP General Secretary, likened the address to a well-delivered "reflective soliloquy" but with "very little action content." "The hype had promised more," Bunting told Emboff. ¶4. (SBU) Employing rhetoric made popular by his party in the run up to the 2007 general elections, Golding asserted that after almost three decades of political and economic transformation, the process was far from complete. The PM asserted that "the operations of government and its stifling effect on the economy must be reconfigured so that the entrepreneurial spirit which is so instinctive to the Jamaican character can be unleashed, so that as we have demonstrated in our music and on the international athletics track, we can be the best in the world and on top of the world. For too long, we have been playing catch up, trying to meet illusive targets, trying to get through one fiscal year hoping that better will come next year, only to find that next year brings more despair." ¶5. (SBU) In explaining the gravity of the challenges facing the country, Golding said that difficult choices had often been postponed, waiting for a more appropriate time. "Timing, they say, is everything," the PM noted. "But the time can never be more appropriate than when it is necessary and when that necessity is so significant that it becomes an imperative. So often, we have flinched because doing what is right and what is necessary may be unpopular and the next elections are never far away. But the hopes of our children and the future of our country will be defined and determined not by how many elections we win but by what when we have won (sic)," Golding continued. "Changing Course" -------------- ¶6. (SBU) In laying the foundation for his case, Golding argued that the supplementary budget revisions were necessary due to the continuing effects of the global recession, public sector wage adjustments promised to teachers and nurses, and increased interest payments on the public debt. Since the global recession began, the PM noted that Jamaica's export earnings had fallen by half (primarily due to declines in the bauxite/alumina sector),30,000 Jamaicans had lost their jobs, and remittances had declined by 15 percent. As a result, the GOJ's budget deficit for fiscal year 2009 had increased to over USD 180 million, almost nine percent of the total budget. Nevertheless, despite the effects of the global recession, Golding asserted that Jamaica's persistent fiscal problems were systemic, "the symptom of deeper, more fundamental problems that have long bedeviled us." These problems include chronic indebtedness, financed by both international and private sector borrowing that absorbs almost 60 percent of the budget in debt-servicing costs, keeps interest rates high, and crowds out private investment, as well as a government that is bloated, inefficient and too expensive to maintain. "We cannot go on like this," the PM declared, while calling for "a process of structural adjustment...to allow the energizing stimulus of market forces to transform the economy." ¶7. (SBU) Golding lamented that Jamaica's current government apparatus was designed to support wages and debt servicing as opposed to delivering services to the Jamaican people. "The Jamaican people are being shafted. They pay taxes but they are never able to see a commensurate return in the delivery of government services, e.g. roads, water supplies, good quality education, and health services," Golding posited. The PM noted that the GOJ's public sector was based on "a structure and culture inherited from a colonial era," was "antiquated, inefficient, and largely irrelevant," and should be replaced with "a flatter structure, devolution of authority with responsibility and authority conjoined. However, although Golding promised to establish a unit within his office to drive this reform process, the PM provided few specifics as to how he would address these issues. Nevertheless, Golding insisted that the public sector's "wage bill burden cannot be sustained" and that "some departments and agencies will have to be eliminated...[or] merged." ¶8. (SBU) Similarly, the PM noted that the public sector wage bill, which he said has increased by 50 percent over the past two years, was unsustainable and in need of "restructuring...to be more efficient and cost-effective." Again, however, Golding offered few specifics as to how many of the GOJ's 117,000 civil service jobs and 16 Cabinet positions would be affected, nor which "departments and agencies will have to be eliminated." Golding did indicate that GOJ entities that provide or regulate commercial services - such as the Registrar General's Department, the Passport, Immigration and Citizenship Authority, or the Firearm Licensing Authority - should become self-sufficient and fully fund their operations from fees and user charges. The PM also described the GOJ's much-evaded and poorly-enforced tax system as "inequitable and unjust," and called for a "full program of tax reform" to enhance revenues and distribute the nation's tax burden more fairly. Two Years In, Mixed Marks For JLP -------------- ¶9. (SBU) Golding's attempt at recapturing the political initiative comes just after the second anniversary of the JLP's narrow 2007 general election victory that ended 18 years of continuous PNP rule (Reftel B). In a series of media retrospectives on the JLP's record, the record was mixed and Golding himself intimated that he his government had failed to live up to expectations. Nevertheless, public opinion polls indicate that Jamaicans remain moderately supportive of the JLP's record in office - Golding's job approval rating in August was 47 percent, virtually identical to the 48 percent approval he enjoyed a year earlier - suggesting that the public remains willing to give Golding and the GOJ the benefit of the doubt given the difficult economic climate in which Jamaica finds itself (Reftel C). ¶10. (SBU) In media interviews commemorating the second anniversary of the 2007 general election, Golding admitted that his government had lost valuable time in 2007 and 2008 in failing to address the nation's spiraling crime rate and to appreciate the effects of the global economic crisis on Jamaica, focusing instead on a series of high profile government corruption cases. As global commodity prices skyrocketed in late 2007 and into 2008, foreign exchange markets lost stability and Jamaica's inflation rate soared to over 20 percent. When the global financial crisis hit the world's financial markets in 2008, revenues from remittances and the bauxite industry - the major sources, along with tourism, of Jamaica's foreign earnings - plummeted. To compensate, the Bank of Jamaica increased interest rates, implemented a number of controversial monetary policies, and succeeded in reducing and stabilizing the inflation rate by early 2009. ¶11. (SBU) The PM also has suggested that he might have squandered the vast political capital he enjoyed following the 2007 elections, and that "we might have invested it more in some tougher decisions at that time." Golding attributed his GOJ's failure to take "the fiscal challenges by the scruff of the neck more vigorously" to his Cabinet's inexperience after the JLP's 18 years in opposition. Responding to media criticism of the slow pace of GOJ proposals currently before Parliament, the PM "concede[d] that we have been less assertive than we should have been," but promised "[y]ou are going to see a much more active legislation session up to Christmas, and then up to the end of the fiscal year." ¶12. (C) Delano Seiveright, a JLP party insider who works in the PM's office, told Emboffs that the general feeling within the JLP was that Golding had wasted valuable time pursuing elusive political consensus with an opposition party unwilling to accept its fate. As a result, Seiveright explained, Golding had alienated a number of JLP supporters who, after years of toiling for the party, had expected to assume some of the posts held by known PNP operatives. Seiveright told Emboffs that some of those who had supported Golding's return to the helm of the party (NOTE: Golding left the JLP during the 1990s to lead the minor party National Democratic Movement, but returned to the JLP in the early 2000s. End Note) were becoming impatient with his leadership, which they felt was beginning to drive segments of the re-energized middle class back into apathy. ¶13. (SBU) Luckily for the JLP, the divided and demoralized post-election PNP, riven by leadership divisions (Reftel D) and pursuing an ill-advised strategy of attempting to regain a parliamentary majority by challenging the eligibility of JLP Members of Parliament (MPs) on dual citizenship grounds (Reftel E), appeared incapable of presenting itself as a credible alternative. ¶14. (SBU) By the spring and summer of 2009, however, the GOJ's perilous economic circumstances could no longer be ignored. Although Parliament adopted an austere budget, including a public sector wage freeze and a controversial gasoline tax, by September Golding and Finance Minister Audley Shaw were forced to admit that the budget had been based on overly rosy revenue projections. In August, following a series of high profile personnel changes in the Ministry of Finance (Reftel F),Golding instructed his cabinet to propose additional budget cuts of 20 percent, more than USD 190 million, from their ministries, but the following month presented a supplementary budget that in fact called for increasing spending by USD 75 million, to be financed by increased borrowing and revenue enhancements (Septel). ¶15. (SBU) Meanwhile, the GOJ has been engaged for several months in controversial negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to resume a borrowing relationship in order to bolster the GOJ's balance of payments (Reftel G) while efforts at divesting the revenue-draining Air Jamaica appear to be going nowhere (Reftel H). Similarly, the Golding government has gone through three Ministers of National Security but has yet to adequately address Jamaica's soaring crime rate, a problem exacerbated by the economic crisis, while youth unemployment remains above 20 percent. Finally, the GOJ's intransigence in the face of a high profile U.S. extradition request (Reftel I) has called into question the JLP's anti-crime bona fides. Conclusion and Analysis -------------- ¶16. (SBU) On leaving office in 1997, former U.S. Ambassador Gary Cooper noted that Jamaica's problems stem from the fact that Jamaicans "applaud announcements and not achievements," and the PM's speech is consistent with this assessment. Although public opinion polls demonstrate broad support for such JLP policies as the abolition of school fees and user fees for health care services, by the PM's own admission little progress has been made in addressing the major issues facing Jamaica: balance of payments, economic competitiveness, the size of the public sector, labor unrest, official corruption, and the maintenance of law and order. However, as Jamaica's economic crisis deepens, another election cycle nears, and the PNP shows renewed signs of life, time may be running out for the policies of Golding and the JLP to begin showing results. ¶17. (SBU) Despite the GOJ's failure to deliver on many of its 2007 general election promises, Golding remains personally popular, more so than his party and his government, even as most Jamaicans tell public opinion pollsters that they are worse off than they were two years ago and that the nation is heading in the wrong direction. However, two years into his administration and by his own admission, Golding has not proven himself the transformative leader he promised to be during the 2007 campaign and the Jamaican electorate continues to withhold judgment on the PM and the JLP. And with another election cycle due in less than three years, the window of opportunity for making any politically difficult decisions may be closing. End Conclusion and Analysis. Parnell