By Garwin Davis, Assistant News EditorTHE GOVERNMENT'S penchant for blaming others for the country's economic woes is indicative of an administration which has lost all moral authority to govern, Leader of the Opposition Edward Seaga has charged.
In an interview with The Gleaner, Mr. Seaga said the Government was looking for people to blame for the rapid decline of the Jamaican currency.
"The Government, as expected, is trying to blame those who have been speculating," Mr. Seaga said. "They got away with it the last time but we are going to see to it that they don't get away with it this time."
The Government has blamed speculators for what the Prime Minister called "an artificially high rate" for foreign currency.
The Bank of Jamaica (BoJ) was forced to intervene in the market Monday "in an effort to bring order to trading". The intervention appeared to have had some early success with the market not being anywhere as volatile as it had been over the past several days.
Asked who were to be blamed then, the Opposition Leader didn't hesitate. "The banks and the private sector have nothing to do with this problem," he said. "It was created by the politicians who are in charge of the country. They created it and must stand by it."
Mr. Seaga said the current situation reminded him of the "the crash of the 1990s", noting: "but at that time they were able to pinpoint three or four persons to blame the typical response is to always blame it on the wicked capitalist."
The country in the mid-1990s experienced a major economic crisis which saw the Jamaican dollar plunged to record lows.
Mr. Seaga said the situation was now simply a crisis of confidence, noting that the government had lost most if not all of its "political capital" both at home and abroad.
But would things have been any different if his party had won the election? "Some of the problems such as having to deal with the mess created by the Finance Minister would have been unavoidable," he said.
"We however would have had the moral authority the political capital to tell the people the truth. There wouldn't have been this loss of confidence."
But is there an end game here? "The Government has openly, blatantly and deviously deceived the people and no longer has the credibility to govern - this is the problem," Mr. Seaga said.
And if he were advising them? "I would ask the Finance Minister to do the honourable thing," he said. "When people lose confidence in your abilities, it is very difficult to recover from that."
