THE Finance Ministry confirmed yesterday that the Government failed to meet the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF’s) debt target, but declined to say whether the multilateral agency will overlook the missed target.

Under the Stand-By Arrangement with the IMF, the Government agreed to cap its central government direct debt (excluding government guaranteed debt and IMF credits) at a ceiling of $1.26 trillion for end March 2010 — a figure, which the Government has surpassed by over $17 billion.

In a written response to Business Observer queries, the Finance Ministry stated that “the figure reported in Statement VIII of the Financial Statement covers the Government Direct Debt or Central Government Debt outstanding as at March 31, 2010”.

The document stated that central government debt totalled $1.28 trillion — $758 billion for domestic debt and $519 billion for “external central government debt”.

The ministry, however, did not answer whether the IMF “will overlook the performance criteria”.

Statement VIII did show $4.75 billion associated with Sugar Company of Jamaica debt assumed by the Government and another $113 million associated with public sector entities, but even if those debt were excluded, the Government would still have missed the IMF target by over $10 billion.

The IMF has nine quantitative performance criteria by which the Government will be graded and which the State needs to meet in order to get future disbursements.

The first IMF test is scheduled for May, when the multilateral agency will look at March-end figures.

Last week, in his opening budget presentation to Parliament, Finance Minister Audley Shaw made a point to suggest that Government had already passed at least three of the criteria — a floor set on net international reserves, a ceiling set on net domestic assets and a floor on a primary balance.

“In relation to Bank of Jamaica operations, the accumulation of BOJ’s Net International Reserves since December 2009 was well above the targeted floor,” he said. “The extent of this over-performance was broadly reflected in the Net Domestic Assets of the Bank that stood well within the targeted ceiling.”

Added Shaw: “Mr Speaker, as I have already stated, preliminary data suggest that the Central Government performance for the fiscal year resulted in a fiscal deficit of 10.9 per cent of GDP. The primary balance, defined as total revenue collected less what is paid out for recurrent and capital expenditure, was kept above the targeted floor.”