As the PNP described current efforts to forge an acceptable plan for agreement with the IMF for a US$1.2-billion standby agreement as 'bungling', party president Simpson Miller said to the 71st conference of her party: "It is now an open secret that the IMF is getting increasingly impatient with the incompetent manner in which the discussions are being handled by the JLP government," Simpson Miller argues that the IMF is "fed up" so has snubbed a team to Washington which in her words was unwelcome: "Don't bother to come unless you can answer the critical questions."

In response the Gleaner reports, Information Minister Daryl Vaz suggests that "instead of playing games with the welfare of Jamaicans, I implore the Opposition not to turn this IMF negotiation into a political football as this is a time for all well-thinking Jamaicans to band together". Vaz was further strongly supported in his view by Minister of Finance Audley Shaw who described the Opposition's comments as "mischievous and irresponsible". Now there's a much broader picture at the heart of these problems being encountered by the JLP government at this grave moment.

We inherited the Westminster model of civil service arrangements. For close to 40 years we have repeatedly, operationally rejected it, naming special advisers, creating quasi-government institutions to accomplish tasks normally within the purview of the civil service and worst of all, on occasion, 'clean-desking' an incumbent official. If you're unaware of this term, it means giving an official no work to do, no files and perhaps relegating him or her to a back office with a malfunctioning air conditioning unit!

competent

From left, Simpson Miller ... says the Government has bungled IMF negotiations and Vaz ... accused the PNP of playing games with Jamaica's future.

Apart from the cabinet secretary, the financial secretary is the most powerful or important civil servant in the apparatus of civil government as we know it. The incumbent as the JLP took office, Colin Bullock, was competent, having the experience of many years at the Bank of Jamaica and as financial secretary, dealing with issues central to negotiations of the kind we now confront. As far as I know, he has not yet achieved retirement age. He was let go. Was that politics? If it was, then it is a vain cry for Ministers Vaz and Shaw to now attempt to chastise the Opposition for playing politics with the 'welfare' of Jamaicans.

It is obvious to anyone who wishes to see that such an important position ought not to be considered in the realm of politics. Dr Wesley Hughes has been removed from a job he has grown into, requiring very different skills from the one he must now undertake. The team, as reported in The Gleaner, of Bank of Jamaica governor and Hughes, assisted by "Darlene Morrison, a senior manager at the finance ministry; Audrey Anderson, BOJ senior deputy governor, and John Robinson, division chief of research at the BOJ", is obviously not meant to inspire great confidence. These committed civil servants and central bank staff, it appears, have been brought together in a rush. Where was the planning from the October 2008 Wall Street meltdown to prepare for the contingency of having to engage with the IMF?

Call it 'bungling', call it what you will, this is not good governance. The bigger picture I referred to earlier is the fact that civil society and good governance require commitment to an agreed, recognised, and fully supported set of rules of conduct in these matters. And while we're at it, reports of efforts to place a demonstrably highly successful businessman to provide support in the Ministry of Finance are, to say the least, troubling.

The skills required for success in his previous, perhaps highly specific, endeavour might indeed have no bearing upon the tasks, institutional arrangements and cadence of governmental finance in the arena of bureaucracy and multilateral finance in which he is sure to find himself.

US-type regime

From left, Hughes .. new financial secretary, who is among the team negotiating with the IMF and Shaw ... the finance minister has taken the brunt of the barracking.

In the end, if we wish to employ the US-type regime of political appointments approved by Congress, we should say so, have it approved by Parliament and proceed. That way, questions could and would be raised and answered to the satisfaction of the people. The welfare of Jamaicans will continue to be ill-served if regimes of ad hoc, even whimsical deliberations govern our choices in these matters. So Minister Vaz is absolutely correct, there should be no room for merely "playing political football" with such weighty matters.

wilbe65@yahoo.com