Dessler Smith sifts through some documents in the Hansard editing section of Parliament. - Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer

FOR 30 YEARS, Dessler Smith has edited Hansard, the official records of Parliament, and has seen the best and worst of debates over the period.

Smith, who virtually established the editorial section of Parliament in the late 1970s, witnessed the end of the Manley dynasty, edited notes from debates during the turbulent period of the 1970s, observed the colourful parliamentary career of Edward Seaga, and remembers an era of solid contributions to the nation by independent senators.

The majority of the current crop of legislators may ask Dessler who? But Smith, the longest-serving worker in Parliament, has scrutinised reams of documents detailing the contributions of elected representatives and those appointed to the Upper House.

Budget debates

Seaga

With the beginning of the 2009-10 Budget debate this week, we sifted through Hansard and found a 2003 debate, focusing on "overspending" and Inter-national Monetary Fund (IMF)-related issues.

On Tuesday, the most anticipated Budget debate in the history of Independent Jamaica will begin. Finance and the Public Service Minister Audley Shaw will make his second budget presentation as a minister. He is at the wicket at a time when the country is trying to assuage the fury of the global economic crisis.

Then opposition spokesman on finance, Shaw, in 2003, brought a stinging six-point resolution to the House, accusing his counterpart Dr Omar Davies of, among other things, knowingly allowing the 2002-2003 expenditure budget to overrun, leading to the doubling of the fiscal-deficit target. This, Shaw charged, was done without seeking the approval of Parlia-ment, which he said was an act of deceit, which masked the true state of the fiscal deficit.

Shaw was in a fighting mood as he blasted the People's National Party (PNP) and Dr Davies, in particular, for what had become known as the 'run wid it budget'.

Said Shaw: "The construction of the Budget was conceived in deception. Agreements were reached, and while the political campaign was on, a whopping $10 billion salary package was being quietly paid to 100,000 people and the minister did not come to Parliament to tell us of this."

Worst recession

Countering, then PNP lead heckler, Donald Buchanan, rubbished claims by Shaw. He took a jab at the Seaga administration of the 1980s. "In 1983, we had an announcement by the Government of the day that we had passed the IMF test. This country was in the worst economic state it could ever be. The 19.2 per cent deficit of gross domestic product was being experienced by this country in that year. They came out and say they had passed the IMF test. Five weeks later, the IMF come out and say nothing don't go so."

A return to the IMF has been a discussion that appears to be gaining traction in some quarters and Seaga, on CVM's current affairs programme 'Direct', last week, indicated that Jamaica seemed destined to re-engage the fund.

But in the 2003 debate, Seaga defended his administration's decision to go the route of a borrowing relationship with the IMF. In the mid-1980s, according to Seaga, the world was facing its worst recession in 50 years. "It hit us where it hurt most, in bauxite and alumina; that industry practically collapsed.

"We entered into that structural adjustment, which was a 1985 adjustment, and we made savage cuts in expenditure. We were able to ride out of that problem in one year and by 1986, the economy had resumed growth, small, albeit. And from there on, it grew at an average of five per cent per annum for the rest of the period," Seaga said.