The Editor, Sir :

The newly formed Government of Jamaica should determine the networth of the outgoing Govern-ment of Jamaica and release this information via media and Jamaica Information Service website to the world.

The main objective of this is:

(i) to present the assets/liabilities/ networth approach to evaluate the true financial position of the public sector, in order to have a better assessment of longer term fiscal sustainability; and

(ii) to present application of this approach to the case of Jamaica, to illustrate its use and to help the authorities in the process of fiscal adjustment.

(iii) In particular, the study could help ensure that the fiscal measures that the Government is implementing to address present fiscal gaps are coherent and consistent with achieving longer term fiscal sustainability.

Over to you Prime Minister Golding and Finance Minister Audley Shaw.

Depending on how this study turns out a certain financial analyst (extremely hostile to the Bruce Golding-led JLP) could end up with egg on his face.

I am, etc.,

Dr. CHARLES

DEMONTAQUE, Ph.D.

Stafford University

United Kingdom