Mark Golding, the Opposition Leader of the People’s National Party (PNP), has outlined that the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) government is playing fast and loose with Jamaica’s future, which is not sound fiscal management.

Golding also expressed that historically, the crucial reforms and economic management that have created long-term stability in Jamaica’s finances began with the last PNP administration under former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller with Peter Phillips as finance minister.

“They understood the historic nature of their assignment, and they championed change. We acknowledge that the current government continued what we had started. Jamaica benefitted from continuity in this journey, but let no one forget we did the heavy lifting to take Jamaica out of a deep debt crisis and set Jamaica on a sustainable fiscal path, and this was after the JLP government of 2007 to 2011 couldn’t cross it and run leff it,” he said.

In citing what Shadow Minister on Finance, Planning, and Public Service Julian Robinson outlined on Thursday, March 13, Golding stated that Jamaica’s tremendous achievement in public debt reduction is due to the PNP.

“We are proud of that achievement and that legacy. We remain, most importantly, fully committed to fiscal discipline. We will not do anything that will jeopardise the sacrifices that have been made by the Jamaican people to get our country where we are,” Golding said.

He further outlined, while recalling the construction of the East-West Highway, that the JLP government loves to refer to the term ‘running with it,’ but ironically, they always continue the initiative implemented by his party.

“Why was that comment ever made two decades ago? The then finance minister was referring to the continuation of the construction of the East-West Highway from Mandela to May Pen, which the Jamaica Labour Party had opposed, so opposed to it were they that they disciplined the Mayor of Spanish Town at the time Raymoth Notice, for attending the opening of that leg of the highway, but in what can only be called a supreme irony, they have extended the same highway to Williamsfield, and that same highway is now being sold on the market to raise money for this coming fiscal year’s budget. Oh, what a tangled web they weave when they practice to deceive,” he continued.

Additionally, Golding highlighted that the budget for this fiscal year, now ending 2024/2025, was funded by over $70 billion of non-tax revenues, which came from the sale of 12 years of future income.

“This meant that what is to be earned over 12 years from Jamaica’s future revenues from the Norman Manley International Airport was sold so that that money could be spent now.

“The money was used to finance various recurrent expenses, a one-time so-called reverse income tax credit, one year of some other tax relief that is going to be an ongoing annual cost to the budget, and some other expenditures. None of these will have a lasting beneficial impact on the future of this country,” he added.

He outlined that recurrent expenditure ought properly to be funded from revenues generated in the year in which those expenditures are incurred while ensuring funds still remain for future use.

“Not by selling off future income and leaving the cupboard empty for years to come. Not one school, not one hospital, not one water reservoir, and no other lasting national asset has been built with those funds. Nothing that will deliver solid benefits to the country throughout those 12 years where the income has been disposed of.”

Golding expressed that there is more of this plan for this coming fiscal year, as the revenue estimates for 2025/26 have $139.8 billion of non-tax revenues, including financial distributions of $66.2 billion.

“I inquired of the Ministry of Finance as to the composition of the 66.2 billion of financial distributions, and I was told that the major sources are the NHT and the monetization of contractual cash flows. We know that the government is still taking the 11.4 billion out of the National Housing Trust (NHT) each year, and this is despite the current prime minister, when he was opposition leader, committing in 2013 to amend the law and ring-fence the funds for its primary purpose.

“If 11.4 billion of 66.2 billion is being taken from the NHT, then the other 54.8 billion must be from the so-called modernisation of cash flows. I inquired further of the Ministry of Finance, and it has been confirmed that another large sale of future income is to take place in the coming year,” Golding added.

He also outlined that no further details have been provided while emphasising that “this will be another run-with-it transaction where the government will sell off future revenues to fund expenditures for this year’s budget. In other words, further emptying the cupboard in the coming years with nothing lasting to show for it.”