Audley Shaw, Jamaica’s Opposition Spokesman on Finance, wants IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde to withdraw some comments she made during her visit to Jamaica last week, and he wants Finance Minister Dr. Peter Phillips to write to her on the matter, “to protect our national dignity.”
According to Mr. Shaw, some of Mrs. Lagarde’s comments could be construed as offensive and bordering on political interference.
Mr. Shaw, speaking at a Manchester Chamber of Commerce monthly meeting on Thursday night, said there were two comments, in particular, that had left him concerned.
He said, Lagarde, while speaking with Finance Minister Dr. Phillips at a function, suggested to the finance minister that he should not have feared being considered a pariah during his recent international road show.
“And I was saying to myself, well who was ever a pariah in the foreign market? In fact I would go so far as to say no minister of finance in Jamaica, that I know of, on either side of the House, was ever considered to be a pariah on the internaitonal market.”
Similarly, he said, “no prime minister, on either side of the House, as far as I know, has ever been identified as a pariah in the foreign market.”
Accordingly, he said, “the Managing Director of the IMF should withdraw that comment.”
The other comment that drew the ire of Shaw, a former finance minister, was that relating to “questions of honuring your commitments and (her assertions) that it’s a question of dignity to honour your commitment.”
That he suggested, was casting aspersions on the Jamaican state. In that regard, he reiterated that successive Jamaican governments have always met their international commitments.
In light of these concerns, Mr. Shaw wants Finance Minister Dr. Phillips to write to the IMF Managing Director, “and in a cordial and friendly way, advise her that none of these things have every happened to Jamaica…”
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Shaw wants Lagarde to withdraw "offensive comments"
