Government Committed to Attain Fiscal Targets By 2016

Minister with responsibility for Information, Senator Arthur Williams, says the Government's efforts at advancing fiscal goals as established in the fiscal responsibility framework legislation passed by Parliament in 2010 and further amended in June of this year are well underway.  

Minister Williams was responding to journalists at his first post cabinet press briefing on November 2 at Jamaica House. He gave updates on the four medium term fiscal targets of government as: tax reform; pension reform; the sale of Clarendon Alumina Partners (CAP) and the reduction of the public sector wage bill to 9.5 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Minister Williams said that when the government entered into an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2009, public sector wages were some 11 percent of GDP. The 7 percent increase in public sector wages, which became payable starting this year, Minister Williams said, had an impact on the budget; but that this can be resolved in the short term.  

"The 7 percent payment will cause a spike, but the important thing for the International Monetary Fund is that over the period, over the medium term, we do get to the targets that we agreed to; and that is our challenge, to ensure that the trajectory is in the right direction – of getting to 9 percent by 2016,” Minister Williams said. 

Minister Williams, who is also the Minister with responsibility for the Public Service, noted that both tax reform and pension reform are currently being reviewed by joint select committees of Parliament, and that pension reform should be ready for debate in the House in January.

On the matter of the sale of government shares in CAP, Minister Williams said that the agreement for the sale had been settled, but the process also has to allow the other shareholder, Alcoa, up to 90 days to consider its own options in the company.