The Editor, Sir:

Please publish this as an open letter to Prime Minister Bruce Golding

Dear Sir,

Jamaica and the economy are way off course and it is evident, from having attended the two most recent town-hall meetings which were hosted by you in Montego Bay and Ocho Rios, that there is also a serious synapse between the Government and the people of Jamaica.

I say this with much concern because I have every hope that your administration will succeed and leave Jamaica a safer and most prosperous place.

The fact that there were fewer than 300 persons present at any of these meetings is alarming, to say the least. The very fact that the purpose of these meetings, as stated by you at Ocho Rios, is to help your administration reconnect with the people at a time when there are serious issues facing the nation and fewer than one per cent of persons from either of these constituencies bothered to show up is evidence of a public-relations problem and should be most troubling.

Furthermore, and this is of even greater concern, is that some of the responses which were provided by you and the minister of finance, specifically those relating to questions concerning the economy and the other options available to Jamaica, besides going cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), lacked substance and left much to be desired.

Let me be clear, I have no problem with Jamaica borrowing money at a reasonable rate of interest from the IMF, or any multilateral lending agency for that matter. However, I am convinced that there are other creative streams of revenue which are available to help beef up a very wobbly Budget, one of which is to use the reduction of the real estate transfer tax as an immediate catalyst to stimulate the economy now, rather than later, as proposed by the minister of finance in his most recent Budget presentation.

Invaluable adjustments

The importance of making these adjustments at the earliest is invaluable to the real estate sector, construction industry and the entire economy and were they implemented with alacrity would not only improve the revenue to the Government's coffers significantly, but would also reduce the nation's dependence on foreign financing. Not all our economic woes are entirely the result of the global economic crisis.

The fact that there was a shortfall of some $279 million in stamp duty revenue in the month of May of this year alone, compared with May 2008, should set off alarm bells at the finance ministry that something is seriously wrong with the plans that have been made by the persons who have been entrusted with managing the Jamaican economy.

I am, etc.,

MICHAEL C. MOYSTON

jahspeed@hotmail.com