George Washington, the first American president, is credited with this timeless quote. “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.”

This is true of Nigel Clarke, the most recent in a succession of finance ministers who failed to achieve significant growth of the Jamaican economy. Clarke’s singular failure in an otherwise creditable performance during his tenure at the finance ministry may be explained by the following scenario from business.

It is commonplace among multinational corporations with subsidiaries or branch operations in far-flung places that when one of these starts to bleed and threatens the group’s financial performance the CEO will send in a manager with a well-earned reputation for implementing draconian measures to right the ship. This individual is given a single mandate: Stop the bleed!

Upon arrival at post, like a surgeon, scalpel in hand, he starts by cutting costs, making few friends and many enemies in the process, including the labour unions. After years fighting internecine warfare, maybe enduring a labour strike or two, and putting the financials in a better place, the embattled Mr Scrooge is extracted and sent to his next assignment.

He is succeeded by someone with a more engaging people-centric leadership style who is able to inspire workers to increase productivity and profitability by investing in their development and well-being. It takes a different mindset, approach, and even philosophy to make the shift from cost containment and austerity to development and growth.

Think back over the history of Jamaica’s relationship with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), starting in 1963 during the prime ministership of Sir Alexander Bustamante. Recall the troubled period of the 1970s with Michael Manley at the helm and the landslide loss of the People’s National Party (PNP) in the 1980 General Election.

Through these episodes to the present time, the IMF’s motives and modus operandi have remained stubbornly inflexible, antithetical to growth, and anti-developmentalism.

Columns in the September 1, 2024 edition of The Gleaner titled ‘Minister Clarke’s new job: A different perspective’, by Omar Davies, and ‘The cost of Dr Clarke’s success’, by Maziki Thame, expose the inconvenient truth about the world’s most powerful financial multilateral organisation. Its preoccupation is with stopping the bleed, getting its money back, and exacting surcharges — less with development and inducing growth.

PNP spokesman on finance Julian Robinson gets it. As a policy statement, his speech during the public session of the party’s 86th annual conference was a welcome relief from the “vybz”, which momentarily descended on the thousands gathered in the National Arena. He emphasised that should his party form the next Government, growing the economy would be its first priority, starting day one.

It is worth repeating what he said. In part, quoting from the published report appearing in the September 16, 2024 edition of the
Jamaica Observer: “Our focus is on growth that does not just inflate numbers but improves lives, lifts families out of poverty, and creates opportunities for all Jamaicans regardless of their background. This is how we will build the resilient economy, one that benefits the many, not the few, and addresses the urgent challenges of today while preparing for the opportunities of tomorrow.”

Importantly, the speech addressed not only “the what” but “the how” of making the transition from “low-wage jobs to high-value industries, fostering innovation and driving value-added exports”. Something no IMF programme has ever delivered.

That the work of fixing the fundamentals of the economy — started by Dr Peter Phillips of the PNP and perfected by Dr Nigel Clarke of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) — was urgent and necessary was never in doubt. Jamaica was in a dark place. But balancing the books without balancing lives has a predictable outcome electorally.

Dr Phillips justified the decision to return to the clutches of the lender of last resort in his 2012/2013 budget presentation. He became a casualty of his success, implementing the most austere set of IMF conditionalities when in 2016 the PNP was swept from power.

Dr Clarke, who has been minister of finance since 2018, has performed the role of implementing the IMF’s Structural Adjustment Programme even better than Phillips, in the process becoming the proverbial poster child of the IMF.

With the results of the local government elections earlier this year, the writing was on the wall: Likely defeat of the JLP when the next general election is called as the reward for successfully superintending the strictures of the IMF at unbearable social cost.

There is one thing we can be sure of, having righted the ship, Dr Clarke will better serve the IMF’s neo-liberal monetarist economic philosophy as a deputy managing director than he would serve Jamaica’s interests were he to continue as finance minister at this particular juncture when the priority must shift to equitable and inclusive growth.

He demits office at the finance ministry at the end of this month, October 2024.

Let Dr Clarke go in peace.

Dr Henley Morgan is founder and executive chairman of the Trench Town-based Social Enterprise, Agency for Inner-city Renewal and author of My Trench Town Journey – Lessons in Social Entrepreneurship and Community Transformation for Development Leaders, Policy Makers, Academics, and Practitioners. Send comments to the Jamaica Observer or hmorgan@cwjamaica.com

Dr Henley Morgan