Don Robotham, Contributor

The Standard and Poor's downgrading of Jamaican debt confirms what many have been saying for the past year and more: Jamaica is facing the gravest threat to our economic existence since political independence in 1962. Indeed, it is only during the Great Depression of 1929 that we faced a similar challenge. To meet this challenge, we need political unity, and we need it now.

The failure in economic management of this Government is now clear for all to see. In 2007-2008, we had a primary surplus of 8.2 per cent. Now we have a yawning primary deficit. A large part of this is of course due to the global economic crisis. But the striking thing about our crisis is that the running down of the primary surplus under Mr Shaw's watch began before the economic crisis hit. The writing was on the wall from last year, when the primary surplus fell to 4.5 per cent.

When Dr Davies and others pointed out where things were heading, they were roundly 'traced'. Now it is the turn of Standard and Poor's to be 'traced'. Is this not ridiculous?

From the very start, in its electoral campaign, on the eve of coming to power and in its first year in office, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) arrogantly played down the tightness of our economic situation and the gravity of the impact that the global downturn would have on the Jamaican economy. Now it is clearer than ever that the real choice that we face is this, (IMF or no IMF): Either we begin a process of the orderly restructuring of our national debt, or a disorderly restructuring will be imposed on us by reality. At the end of May 2009, the total national debt stood at J$1.25 trillion. This represents an increase of J$25 billion since the start of this fiscal year. Domestic debt was J$664 billion and foreign debt was J$560 billion. Do the math - it's that simple.

Dual-citizenship issue

Despite the fact that Jamaica is facing this enormous economic crisis - the greatest in 80 years - the government is still proceeding as if it were political business as usual. All sorts of political stratagems are in the pipeline, especially around the dual-citizenship issue. The usual contracts are being handed out to the usual suspects and those who are not closely affiliated to the governing party, like the Reverend Adinhair Jones - formerly executive director of the National Youth Service - are summarily sent into the wilderness. The assumption behind all this is that no special efforts at political unity are necessary and that a single party - in this case the governing JLP - is quite capable of handling this crisis all by itself.

To be fair, the People's National Party (PNP) has also adopted a similar approach. From the very day of their election defeat and by their absurd posturing around the dual-citizenship issue, they have conveyed to the population the idea that all that is necessary for the problems of Jamaica to be solved is to put the PNP back into power. And so, partisan posturing on one side has been met by grandstanding and 'tracing' on the other side. We are not only getting nowhere very fast, the Standard and Poor's downgrade makes it clear where we are really heading if we don't take our heads out of the sand.

The fact is, no single party, whether JLP or PNP, can handle a crisis of this dimension by itself. This crisis is so severe, that, as The Gleaner editorial on Friday pointed out, it requires political unity and mobilisation on a truly national scale. An approach, which assumes that a single party can soldier on regardless, whichever party that may be, is a delusion. Both the JLP and PNP must urgently put aside the silly political squabbling and join forces with all well-thinking Jamaicans without delay.

This occasion of the 47th anniversary of political independence is an opportune moment for both political parties to turn over a new leaf. But this will not happen unless Jamaican civil society puts both of them under the most acute and sustained public pressure.

Long after the US$1.2 billion from the impending International Monetary Fund agreement is exhausted, we will remain in economic crisis. More to the point, when the next general election comes around, we will still be in economic crisis, facing higher unemployment and increased crime. Already, we should note that property crime rates are trending up. Ganja planes are crashing again! Is it not obvious that the last thing we need in Jamaica is political divisiveness sparked by destructive electoral campaigns?

Macroeconomic management

What can a small nation like Jamaica do in the face of these overwhelming global forces?

The most urgent task before us is political unity around the direction of public policy. On this basis, the second issue to be dealt with is the urgent improvement of the macroeconomic management of the Jamaican economy, especially on the fiscal side. The third thing is an orderly and united approach to debt restructuring. The fourth thing is to persuade Venezuela not to modify the generous terms of the PetroCaribe Agreement in a harsher direction. Fifth, we must tackle the challenges facing the bauxite-alumina industry.

The Honourable Carlton Davis already set out what we need to do in his presentation to the International Labour Organisation conference in Jamaica in April. The first priority here is to take the necessary steps to prevent the closure of the fourth and only remaining open plant. It cannot be emphasised how absolutely crucial this is - most of us do not realise that a closure of the Jamalco plant remains a real possibility.

The second step is to secure natural gas as a source of alternative energy to substitute for the current high fuel costs. Again Venezuela is crucial for this. Third is to speed up the shift to the production of specialty alumina away from metal- grade alumina. Fourth is the urgent modification of processing technology. And finally, to put to productive use the thousands of acres of mined-out bauxite lands.

In tourism, the challenge is to begin to expand our tourism market in a much more systematic way into Latin America and Asia. A special section of the ministry needs to be set up to address this - it cannot be left to the Spanish hotels and one or two occasional flights out of Peru.

In the social area, the most important task before us is in the educational and youth fields. Minister Holness has to go all out to break the back of the problem of low quality in our educational system. Great work has been done at the early childhood level by Dr Rebecca Tortello and her team. Now the ministry must focus on the primary-high school zone.

Not starting from scratch

Again, we are not starting from scratch here. There are in existence projects which have achieved phenomenal results in raising the quality of the educational performance of students from inner-city schools - with the performance of young males exceeding that of females at the high-school level. The project implemented by Joan Spencer-Ernandez of the University of the West Indies in Dr Omar Davies' constituency is a model of what can be achieved, on a very low budget to boot. This and other such projects need to be generalised and incorporated systematically in public policy at the ministry level.

The economic crisis we face demands that good ideas and policies from both sides be freely adopted. Political and social unity is the greatest challenge we face. Let all of us set our minds to achieving this, whatever our political preferences may be.