Gareth Manning, Sunday Gleaner Reporter

Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller making her presentation in the Budget Debate at Gordon House on Tuesday.- Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer

While applauding Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller for the delivery of her Budget presentation in Gordon House on Tuesday, this time around, analysts are describing her speech as bereft of the economic policies the country needs to drive it at this point in time.

They say while she scored political points with the poor and vulnerable, there was almost no emphasis on the real issues the country faces.

Errol Gregory, economist

Mainly announcements

The main positive was the goodies. They were consistent with the theme of the family [on which her presentation was centred] and some attempt at protecting those who were vulnerable. That's the only serious positive. It was a speech that consisted mainly of announcements: the announce-ments of the UDC; the announcements relating to the abolition of health fees for under 18s; and, the plan to build a hospital. It was an impressive wish list, with announcements to boot.

Nothing to deal with the economy

I was disappointed, frankly, that there was nothing to deal with the economy, even though she was saying there was this concern for the poor and dispossessed.

On the issue of crime, we are told that some special squad will be going after guns. It is something that we have heard before, and we didn't hear anything at all about the abuse which we see almost every night on the television - in terms of a big divergence of what the police say and what the people say. I don't really see somebody of the grass roots, with that kind of concern, not making a statement about this at a time when it seems to be one of the big problems that really is militating against our social capital.

Concerning some of the announcements, the National Housing Trust (NHT) [loan increase], I would think, on the face of it, that any policy that reduces the mortgage rates and has adjustments to the qualifying limits, could potentially impact on the market, especially now in a context where the mortgage institutions are tripping over themselves to move mortgage portfolios against the background of the reduction in the rates on government paper. So, I could see that potentially impacting on the demand side.

Where I'm not so sure though, is the impact it will have on the supply side, in terms of the availability of units in the 'middle- and lower-income' group - maybe the $6 million-$12 million range, or the typical person who would want to start a home in Portmore, I'm not sure about the availability of units to match increases on the demand side. So, that is what would concern me.

There is also the broader concern that the NHT is seen as an institution that is profitable, and we really don't want to get the impression that when an election comes around we expect the NHT to give out goodies at that level.

One could say that for the presentation, the delivery was one of a greater command than we saw the last time. The language was conciliatory, almost prime ministerial. But, I think the issue now is whetheror not that really just represented an attempt to influence voters at this point, knowing what is to come.

Charlene Sharpe- Pryce, lecturer, Northern Caribbean University:

Idealist, not a realist

Mrs. Simpson Miller's speech projected her as an idealist and not a realist. She stood on a Michael Manley-like platform and echoed a broad social agenda as the catalyst for development. This will resonate mainly with women, the poor, the youth and the disenfranchised. Time and history would have proven, however, that greater economic pragmatic directions are needed to bolster such a social platform. Even though the PM spoke to the economic gains of her administration, (reduced interest rate, unemployment, etc.), how the People's National Party (PNP) would have transferred these into real gains for the common man has not been seen, nor experienced by many. Yes, there are highways as an economic tool, but how does this translate as a real benefit to the small farmer, for example, who is trying to move his products from his farms to the markets, as the connecting roads to get to the highways are absent?

The PM has taken a critical first step that is needed for any maturing democracy: that of identifying the main political value that will shape and push a national MoU. Thus, national security has become a priority area. Getting this priority to work, though, is not simply a function of the police force or the justice system. It also speaks to other political values that, as a nation, we will have to give up to receive this one. Are we willing to elevate policing into a profession, as being advocated by the intellectual arm of the force, to achieve this? Like all other professions, will police personnel be allowed to graduate with a professional policing degree after a number of years of training/schooling requiring competitive matriculation requirements, thus attracting the right calibre of recruits for commensurate remuneration?

Finance and investment not addressed

The presentation left us witha few questions: the hard-core questions of finance and investment were not really addressed. How do we position ourselves for foreign direct investment? How do we position ourselves to benefit from the $9 billion investment we had made as a country in Cricket World Cup?

How do we build public trust in politicians and public servants and ensure that the rule of law is for everybody? What fallouts have been created with the removal of health registration fees for the under-18 in our societies?

In terms of style, she was confident and at ease, organised and compelling even.

The Budget Debate presents the single most important platform on which to capture the ears of the nation on issues pertinent to the nation. It was a speech focused more on depth than breadth, and the youth were the main winners - education, health care, youth-service budget increase, among other initiatives.The PM would have scored also with the poor, disenfranchised, women, and the dispossessed.

She spoke to issues of the heart - the softer, emotive person; she focused on family and relationships. She looked at areas where there were some levels of success for her administration and this presentation really reiterated that women do things differently!

John Jackson, financial analyst:

No solutions

The Prime Minister, [though] it is quite clear that she has had a greater level of input into this year's [presentation], when it was asked of her where the money is coming from for the health scheme, she didn't have an answer. She is now saying the minister of finance will have to shift something to fund it. So, it appears it wasn't thought of when the budget was being crafted. So, essentially, it is a response to the proposal by the Leader of the Opposition, in my estimation. She was attempting to respond, to take the heat off the Government in an election year.

It goes to the core of what I'm saying: Here we have a govern-ment which has not sat down to look at the resources that are available to the country; to look at the positive and the negatives that we have - assets and liabilities that we have - and chart a course, the best course possible, the least pain[ful], to take us where we want to go and [create] a timetable to get us there and to deal with some of the critical elements the society is faced with.

One of the elements that people are faced with (I know they are talking about crime and about education, etc.) is the debt! If we have this monstrous debt that is strangling us to death, then it stands to reason that it takes top priority. The minister of finance has not addressed that in his presentation. All he speaks to is lengthening the profile of the debt, effectively tapping it so that we can start to see a reduction in the cost of servicing it (the interest cost, not principal repayment).

The Prime Minister has not spoken to putting the economic house in order. What she has spoken to are goodies to make the situation worse than it now is.

Rather than dealing with the fundamental issue of cost of money in the system, she goes into her little bags of tricks, pulls out an NHT deal and says to people: 'The interest rates that are already below inflation are going to be reduced even further than before and I'm going to increase the allocation to youth.'

There is total disregard for the private-sector financier. Nobody thinks about the building society [or] the banks who are providing mortgage financing. So, they have to suffer, charting their clients' market rates when other people can get the thing well below inflation average. It doesn't make any sense. (These) policies will lead us on a pathway of self-destruction. And the Prime Minister has failed to deal with those issues.

Back to square one

We have spat in the face of our international creditors who gave us a high credit rating because we seemed to have been on track to reduce the deficit to manageable levels. All that we have done, we have thrown out the pail with the milk and we are back to square one.

So, when next we go back to the international market to borrow more money, people are going to say: 'I can't trust you people because the last time you said you were getting the deficit down to zero and you kept on postponing it'."

I think her presentation in terms of delivery was better. She certainly seemed more composed this time around than was the case last year. From a political standpoint, I think she did pretty well in terms of handing out goodies to the electorate ahead of an election.

I'm not getting the impression that she is in total command of the issues that confront the society. Yes, she knows that people out there are suffering and can't pay school and health fees, but the vision or what is needed to deal with (the economy) over the medium to long term, in my view, is not being articulated by the minister of finance, and it is not being articulated by her.