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depending on when this PNP government wants to make itself look good
and the JLP look bad.
o
Minister, I asked you then to use one ratio, the one that the IMF uses in the
Extended Fund Facility so that we can all be on the same page. We can all
be following the same ratio. After all, that is what the IMF is measuring the
country by. Here we are again. We come back this year and it is the same
thing again, different ratios that only serve to cause confusion. I tell you, it
is simply because the PNP government does not want to report to the
Jamaican people that the all-important debt-to-GDP ratio has not improved
since the JLP left office.
o
I have created a table to show the actual and projected debt-to-GDP ratios
published in the Fiscal Policy Papers dated 18
th
April 2013, 17
th
April 2014
and 15
th
February 2015. The upshot is the government’s debt-to-GDP
ratios, starting with FY2013/14, have
increased
overtime, contrary to their
constant refrain that they are bringing down the debt. Minister, you
continue to mislead the people.
o
More specifically, when the government presented the debt-to-GDP ratios
in the Fiscal Policy Paper dated April 18, 2013, it projected that by
FY2014/15, the debt-to-GDP would be 119.6%.