PM in hot water: Bruce Golding says though trouble is brewing, Jamaicans must learn to stomach difficult economic times. - Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer

Prime Minister Bruce Golding has fired back at Opposition leader Portia Simpson Miller's claim that his Government has not been demonstrating leadership and good management of the country's affairs.

Simpson Miller had charged that the Budget presented by the Government shows no clear path to take the country out of the current economic quagmire.

"This administration has a responsibility to forge a partnership with the people to agree to a blueprint that takes us through this crisis while protecting the people and the progress of the nation," Simpson Miller said in her contribution to the 2009-2010 Budget Debate last week.

Biblical figure

However, in a thinly veiled rebuttal on Tuesday, Golding came within a whisker of comparing himself to the biblical figure Moses, and said that people have always challenged and tested leadership.

"The people of Israel questioned the leadership of Moses as he led them out of Egypt. There were many times that they were on the verge of losing faith, many times that they wanted to turn back," Golding said during his contribution to debate.

"The story of Moses is a lesson in leadership. It is also a lesson in fellowship. He led them through the desert and across the Red Sea but they had to walk, they had to make it on their own feet," Golding said.

"We in Jamaica need urgently to develop a sense of our individual responsibility. We need a conversation as to what is Government and what is the responsibility of Government," Golding said.

Last week, Simpson Miller said, "One of the most fundamental factors required in a time of crisis is that the leader and leadership of the country must enjoy the trust and confidence of the people."

She argued that Government has not done enough to build public trust and said that for many Jamaicans, hope had gone out the window.

"The deficit of public trust is compounded by the failure to respond in an appropriate and proactive way to the current crisis," Simpson Miller added.

Meanwhile, Golding said what Jamaica needed was a higher standard of leadership.

"For too long we have trivialised not just our politics, but the nation's business. Too often we have sought political advantage at the expense of the country's advancement. Being opponents does not mean that we have to be enemies," Golding said.

Essential belief

He added: "There has never been a time as urgent as now for us to embrace with our hearts and our minds that essential belief that the Jamaica in which we were born is infinitely more important than the political party to which we belong."

However, Golding said that he was not pointing fingers at the Opposition People's National Party.

"All of us, on both sides of the House, have fallen short. ... There is a virus in our politics that corrodes our minds and clouds our vision. We must rise above it."

daraine.luton@gleanerjm.com