AUDLEY SHAW, a deputy leader of the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the country's finance minister, said it was time his predecessor removed himself from speaking on matters of economics.
"Before you can pay one policeman or fix one pothole, 60 per cent of the money (Government budget) gone to service Omar Davies' legacy," Shaw bellowed to Labourites at his party's annual conference Sunday.
He added "I have never seen a man can chat so, I have never seen a man barefaced like that. That man should be holding his head in shame in a corner somewhere."
Davies was the country's finance minister for 14 years. He lost the job when the People's National Party (PNP), of which he is a member, was voted out of power in 2007, after 18 years in office.
Borrowing from the imf
On Sunday, Shaw blamed the PNP for Jamaica re-entering a borrowing relationship with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The country has been in negotiations for a US$1.2-billion standby agreement with the lending agency to use for balance of payments support.
"The IMF is coming back to Jamaica, not only because of the global implosion and the global financial crisis. The IMF is coming back to Jamaica this time, because of the inheritance and the legacy of mismanagement that we have received from the People's National Party government," Shaw said.
However, he told party supporters that the return of the IMF does not mean gloom for Jamaica.
"We are going to get cheap money from the IMF of between two and two and a half per cent interest rate, and we are going to put in place the right kind of policy to make sure that our people get jobs, we get foreign exchange and we restructure, and we revitalise the Jamaican economy," Shaw said.
Harsh criticisms
The JLP continued to fire harsh criticisms at people outside of the party, saying there were persons, including newspaper columnists, who didn't like when the party talked about what it inherited from the PNP.
According to Shaw, only a small portion of the problems now facing the country is as a result of the world crisis.
"The bigger part of the problem is the inheritance that we have got from the PNP, make no one fool you about that," Shaw said.
Davies told The Gleaner earlier this month that the attacks on him were strategic.
"It is clear that the Government is very, very shaky on the issues of the economy and I think that there is a deliberated policy of targeting me in the hope that by weakening me they would weaken the criticism," Davies told The Gleaner.