IT is difficult to find contrasts in the recently released PNP and JLP manifestos, partly because in many ways they are very similar in terms of actual content.

At first glance, one of the main differences is the size, with the JLP’s 132-page manifesto (without pictures) “Building on Our Achievements … A Better Way Forward” approximately twice that of the PNP’s 72 page “Leading the Agenda for Progressive Change”, which has pictures.

From a purely economic standpoint, a starting point is to look at the critical issue of the debt, the associated issue of our four decades of underperformance in the area of economic growth, and assess which party has the better solutions to these difficult problems. The focus would be to emphasise the future over the past, without dwelling too much on areas of agreement, however welcome.

To make the process more manageable, and provide a framework for a limited assessment of overall performance, as well as the type of policies we should be looking for, it is useful to start with the acronym DEBTI, standing for debt, energy, bureaucracy, tax reform, and investment promotion, with the latter four issues being key to the achievement of faster economic growth in a Jamaican context. Finally, we will emphasise the achievable and concrete over the vague.

The expansion of the debt due to what it calls “mismanagement”, the negotiation of an IMF programme with “unrealistic targets”, and the current “hiatus” with the IMF is a key critique of the JLP’s performance in the PNP manifesto. However, without going into the history of the PNP’s own performance on the debt issue, it is important to start by noting the international context. The global financial crisis and “great recession” has seen an explosive growth in government debt across the world, with the list of countries facing a potential debt crisis expanding almost daily. The governments of a number of countries have fallen, or changed as a result of the ongoing global debt crisis. The collapse in Jamaica’s government interest rates to just above six per cent, the lowest level in decades, and the fall in some mortgage rates to below 10 per cent are important achievements, particularly when compared with the much higher rates currently faced by some other similarly debt-stressed, low productivity sovereigns.

Both parties plan to negotiate a new IMF agreement, and both have committed to public sector and pension reform to reduce costs. Indeed, the delay in the quarterly tests mainly reflects the failure to meet these structural benchmarks, compounded by the recent decision to pay civil servants a portion of their back pay. Indeed, the solution proffered in the PNP manifesto to “engage with public sector workers in developing an agreed Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to reduce wages and salaries as a percentage of GDP” is what the current JLP administration is still trying to do. The dialogue promised by the PNP is welcome, but the unanswered question that remains is how to raise the primary surplus, which excludes interest costs. For example, would a PNP administration not have agreed to pay the civil service their back pay in August to keep the IMF agreement on track? If the PNP doesn’t want to cut civil service jobs, how long a wage freeze do they envisage, and how does one reconcile such an approach to the need to improve civil service productivity. If their desire is to soften the impact of the approach outlined in the Green paper on pension reform, would this mean a longer wage freeze to meet an overall wage bill target (including pension costs). Of course, essentially the same questions can be asked of the JLP, but their manifesto is marginally clearer on these issues. For example, the JLP specifically state that they intend to reduce the cost of the public sector to below 10 per cent of GDP, and cite their “Public Sector Transformation Report”, including the merger of agencies, elimination of redundant functions, and reengineering of government processes, rather than “the blunt elimination of jobs”.

Neither party has much to say about tax reform, another key IMF structural requirement, with both citing the need for greater efficiency and equity. The PNP argues the need to broaden the tax net and for the revamping of incentives, whilst the JLP reasonably notes their tabling of a “green paper”, as part of a wider process of “transparency and cooperation”, and promises a historic and comprehensive reform early in the second term. In particular, neither party has explained how taxation would be part of an overall plan to encourage exports. On the positive side of the ledger for the JLP, the tax advantaged Junior Market of the Jamaica Stock Exchange has raised equity capital for twelve stock market listings, with the majority in productive sectors like manufacturing, distribution and tourism as opposed to the previous wave of financial sector listings in the early part of the decade under the PNP. Both parties also mention encouraging venture capital in their manifestos.

In the critical area of energy, the PNP’s manifesto seems to have the edge, in that it goes beyond the admittedly detailed objectives outlined in the JLP’s manifesto, namely to modernise the electricity infrastructure, diversify the fuel mix, strengthen regulation and institutions and promote energy efficiency and conservation, to a more explicit commitment to liberalise the energy sector, and move towards market determined fuel choices.

Despite Jamaica’s fall in ranking in some of the key international benchmark reports, it is in the area of what can be loosely titled bureaucracy that one gets a clearer sense of the way forward from the JLP than the PNP, as the latter hides some similar legal initiatives in a section called “legislative and administrative reform” at the back of their important governance section. The JLP’s more forceful title “Enhancing the Business Environment by Reducing Cost and Time” specifically mentions measures to encourage would be entrepreneurs to enter the formal economy, and heralds Minister Tufton’s “super form”, designed to combine the application forms for NIS, TRN, GCT, TCC, HEART and NHT. It appears that they have taken to heart that one of the principal competitive advantages that a small country like Jamaica can offer both local and foreign investors is better government services (for example in the area of government approvals) thereby reducing costs. In short, what Prime Minster Holness described at their manifesto launch, coming out of an interview with the Financial Times, as the intention “to make Jamaica the Singapore of the Caribbean”.

Finally, in the broadly defined area of investment promotion (local and foreign), there are similar initiatives and emphases in both manifestos for tourism (both focus on health tourism), information and communications technology (ICT), agriculture, infrastructure, and policies for medium and small enterprises (MSME’s). One key difference is the JLP’s commitment to completing its Offshore Financial Centre for Kingston initiative, which is not mentioned in the PNP’s manifesto. There is also a greater emphasis in the JLP manifesto on taking advantage of Jamaica’s key competitive advantage — its location — with initiatives such as a Fort Augusta “Freeport” to rival Panama, expansion of the Port of Kingston in “logistics”, the fabled Vernamfield air transhipment hub, a proposed new modern port facility at Port Esquivel, and a dry dock at Salt River.

Overall, the two manifestos are quite similar in many respects in terms of the policies and initiatives, although the JLP manifesto is significantly more detailed in some areas critical to long-term economic success, such as education, where it is three times as long. In the final analysis, however, manifestos are simply statements of intent, with the critical factor being the leadership capability to implement what will be difficult decisions in very difficult economic times.