There is an obvious, and deepening, domestic consensus that Jamaica faces an intractable debt crisis, which insists upon some form of concession from creditors if the country is not to sink under the weight of the problem.

There is disagreement in how to go about the problem and how to articulate what is to be done. The second part, to us, is easy - call the process anything that suits people's fancy.

The first part, designing modalities to ease the burden, can't be beyond the capacity of Jamaican technical minds, especially if those Jamaicans who hold the Government's debt embrace the notion of enlightened self-interest.

The need for action, however, is urgent, especially in the context of the current global recession that has landed thumping blows on the Jamaican economy.

It cannot continue

Indeed, Mr Minh Pham, the resident representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), laid out the issue of the island's debt problem in unadorned fashion when he participated in a recent forum hosted by this newspaper.

"There is no way," Mr Pham said, "that Jamaica can continue to pay its debts at the current levels without hurting its future."

At last count, that debt - excluding contingent liabilities from state enterprises that have not reached the books of central government - was $1.2 trillion, approximately half of which is owed to the domestic market. It represents around 108 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), and edging upwards, although still some way off from the 140 per cent of GDP of the recent past.

The starkest measure of this crisis, though, is the impact of debt-servicing on the national Budget. This fiscal year, for example, meeting interest and principal payments will require approximately $309 billion, or 56 per cent of the Budget, leaving relatively little for use by the Government to finance all the other things it must do to help foster national well-being and to stimulate economic growth.

Talk restructuring

Like this newspaper, Mr Pham believes that domestic creditors and the Government have to sit to talk restructuring - a term not much liked by domestic financiers for fear of the image it conjures - default. Default, it has been stressed, would lock Jamaica out of global capital markets for a long time, notwithstanding the country's impeccable record, up to now, of meeting its obligations.

The suggestion, here, is not for impositions on creditors, but for voluntary negotiations, which may not necessarily aggregate debt but the cost of servicing it.

In other words, enlightened self-interest on the part of the creditors calls, as Mr Pham explained, for a rebalancing of the interest of debt holders and those of the society as a whole.

We understand that the situation requires careful and measured discourse, mixed with a heavy dose of pragmatism on all sides. Failure could lead to social atrophy, or worse.

It seems to us that the UNDP, in this context, could play an important role as honest broker. Its offer, therefore, to finance/conduct studies on the impact of debt on the national economy and to act as facilitator between Government and lenders should be welcomed all round.

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