The Finance Minister, Audley Shaw announced back in mid-July that the overdue 4th and 5th  quarterly reviews of the standby agreement (SBA) that the government entered into in January 2010 await agreement with the IMF on a range of issues.  Normally, the review would be done at the end of each quarter but differences with the IMF led to the postponement, first of the review of the performance in the December quarter, and subsequently,the review of the March quarter’s performance. According to Shaw, these include ensuring sustainable public sector staffing costs, implementing tax reform, including reductions in discretionary tax waivers, and further improving tax administration. As a result the Government of Jamaica (GoJ) has not been able to draw-down the next tranche of the IMF loan of US$253 million. Nor will some of the flows from the complementary packages for budget support that were put together by other multilaterals and bilaterals be forthcoming until the GoJ and the IMF come to some agreement on going forward. The EU’s Head of Delegation has publicly confirmed the withholding of further disbursements from the EU’s support programme at this time. 

About the Author

Michael P. Witter

 Michael P. Witter is a senior lecturer in economics at the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economics Studies, University of the West Indies, Mona.