Director of the Latin American Initiative at the Brookings Institute, Mauricio Cardenas and Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding (JIS Photo)

Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding delivered a lecture on the Jamaican economy to Washington’s Brookings Institution think tank, focusing on ways to tackle the government’s deficit.

“We have sought to consolidate government’s accounts and bring them under one Treasury Management System,” he said in a lecture to more than 200 participants. “This will allow us to have a clearer picture of our government accounts.”

Golding’s wide-ranging lecture spoke of the introduction of the Jamaica Debt Exchange, crime-reduction measures and the development of stringent economic programmes. According to the prime minister, it was time to include debt restriction in the constitution.

“I want to go further and put it in the Constitution and place significant limits, with the provision that in extraordinary circumstances, with the approval of Parliament, that those limits can be exceeded,” he said.

Golding was in Washington as part of a five-day visit that has included visits with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and World Bank President Robert Zoellick.

–Jamaica Information Service