MEASURES NECESSARY

By Linda Straker

Prime Minister, Dr. Keith Mitchell, has disclosed that Grenada will be implementing a three-year home-grown structural adjustment programme within the first quarter of 2014.

Though the full programme is yet to be developed, he indicated that it will involve measures that will affect the population in various ways and thus, he anticipates that there will be fallouts from sections of the society.

“I do expect a fallout from the decisions to be taken,” Dr. Mitchell told the media in a news conference on Monday.

“I do not enjoy doing this at all. I wish I did not have to do this. I don’t expect people to love me for doing this,” he said.

“We are forced in a corner where we have to do something,” he added.

Measures to be taken will include: reducing the income tax threshold to between EC$30 000 to EC$36 000 to rates that will be between 10 per cent to 15 per cent; increase the percentage for those who earn more than EC$60 000; improve compliance of fees at government departments where fees are collected;  cut back on wastage in all forms such as in rental of buildings to house government offices and reducing the public stand pipes; reduce advisors to government; and working out an arrangement with trade unions as it pertains to salaries for public officers.

With regards to salary reduction like was done in Barbados, the Prime Minister said that this will not be an option for Grenada. “I will not be able to cut anybody’s salary,” he said.

Describing the trip to Washington as very successful, he said that creditors appear to have appreciated the need for debt relief and they are willing to help the country get out of the current situation with regards to its debt burden.

“The country must in return show that it is helping itself … when we are expecting people to help us, we must show that we are helping ourselves,” he said.

The complete structural adjustment programme will be a fundamental component of the 2014 Budget, which is expected to be presented in the early days of December 2013. By that time, Grenada would have signed the agreement with the IMF.